
G^iigM?- . 



GOPYRIGIfl' DEPOSIT. 



A LIFE'S VOYAGE 



A Diary of a Sailor on Sea and Land, 

Jotted Down during a Seventy- 

Years' Voyage 



BY 

AMBROSE COWPERTHWAITE FULTON 



NEW YORK 

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 

1898 

1 






';i0()44 



Entered according to an Act of Congress in the year lE 
Office of the Librarian of Congress, 

BY 

AMBROSE COWPERTHWAITE FULTON. 

KVO COPIES DECEIVED. 



in the 




'=h\'=h O 



PREFACE. 

It is well known, in the philosophy of nature, that the world 
was created and formed by and through a combination of par- 
ticles; some of those particles possessing great value, others but 
little or no value, yet absolutely necessary to form the great mys- 
terious structure, the cradle of all life. 

The world of letters or literature has its combination of parts 
and particles, valuable and valueless, and it is only second in 
grandeur and greatness to the material world, and is the cradle 
of man's greatness. 

Without question man's nearest approach to God is in his intel- 
lect and in his resolution, for resolution is omnipotent. 

Herein it is the intention, the premeditated design, to navigate 
both the deep, the shoal, the pacific, and the boisterous waters of 
the historical and the literary seas, and should necessity require. 
I shall sail close to the wind, but I must endeavor to steer clear of 
the dangerous rocks. Parody and Travesty. Some superficial 
critic may cry egotism. It would be beneficial to all such to 
peruse the immortal *' Vicar of Wakefield." 

Mark! Wreckers will receive no salvage. 

Self is absolutely necessary in a life voyage. Herein no 
space exists for the presence of extravagant illusions, but strict 
allegiance to solemnity and facts. No magnifying ink will be 
used, but unadorned occurrences: and Nature will be called 
upon to man the helm ; yet no shade of gloom will appear to mar 
a life's voyage. 

To economize space and time in filling up blanks and names 
and recollections, now defaced upon the tablet of my memory 
by the accumulated moss of the big end of a century past and 
gone, I will use the words, They and We, as the more enlight- 
ened are permitted to do. 

tii 



IV 



PREFACE. 



I will not draw Utopian shadows, but present substantial 
realities. 

A considerate world should grant a sailor a wide leeway, an 
unbounded latitude on the historical and literary sea. A diary 
is entitled to privileges that history, fiction, and mere composi- 
tion are not. 

I well know that it requires courage to abandon the sea, the 
briny deep, to sail on a more dangerous sea — the sea of ink. 










CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Ocean Soundings, i 

II. A Voyage on the Yazoo River, 4 

III. A Night's Journey through the Deserted Home of 

THE ChICKASAWS, 6 

IV. Davy Crockett's Talk at Benton, Miss., ... 7 
V. A Canebrake Couch, 9 

VI. A Deck Passage, 14 

VII. The "Rolla's" Voyage in 1831, 18 

VIII. The Ocean Desert, 22 

IX. The Slave Trade, 23 

X. The Pirate Schooner and the Mysterious Girl, . 26 

XI. Chili and Valparaiso, 37 

XII. England's Cruelty to the Maid of Orleans, . . 43 

XIII. A Voyage to Jamaica; Its Early Days, ... 47 

XIV. The Maroon War, 49 

XV. Hayti as She Was and as She Is, 52 

XVI. The African's Future, 55 

XVII. A Brief Sketch of the Early History of Mississippi, 

Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, 60 

XVIII. Our Early Presidents and their Cabinets, . . 64 
XIX. The Speakers of the House of Representatives, and 

the Department of the Interior, . . . • 73 

XX. Mohammed's Influence and Power, .... 76 

XXI. The Indian Tribes of North America, .... 78 

XXII. The Seminoles' Napoleon, Osceola, .... 81 

XXIII. The Exiled Seminoles, 84 

XXIV. A Condensed History of Mexico, .... 87 
XXV. Occurrences in New Orleans during the Thirties, . 107 

XXVI. A Visit to the Old Farm Home, . . . . no 
XXVII. Weigh Anchor at the Crescent City's Port to Find a 

Port and Moorings in the Far-distant West, . .118 

V 



vi 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER 
XXVIII. 

XXIX. 

XXX. 



XXXI. 

XXXII. 
XXXIII. 



XXXIV. 

XXXV. 

XXXVI. 

XXXVII. 

XXXVIII. 

XXXIX. 

XL. 
XLI. 



PAGE 

Arrived on the Frontier — Scenes upon the Black 
Hawk Hunting Grounds, 121 

Scenes and Acts on the Western Frontier, . . 128 

The Work to Make a World — The Wild Girl of 
the Thousand Isles — The Slaveship and the 
African Prince, 134 

Chalmette's Battlefield — Robert Fulton's Days — 
The Skeleton of the Schooner's Crew Arrested 
as Pirates — Departure from St, Lawrence River, 227 

Return to Iowa — The Wild Girl and Deep Tragedy 
UPON the Stage of Life — Johnson's Fate, . . 278 

Sailing Distances between Various Ports — The 
Length of the Chief Rivers of the World — The 
Height in Feet of Some of the Principal Moun- 
tains OF the World — Progress, Civilization, and 
Commerce . . . 286 

A Call to Cuba by Defeated but not Conquered 
Patriots — Spain and Cuba as Seen through a 
Sailor's Ship Glass — Taken from my Diary of 1881, 342 

A Journey to New Orleans, Vera Cruz, the City 
OF Mexico ; thence to the Battlefields of the 
Texas Revolution and Indian Territory, . . 360 

Adventures on Sea and Land during a Life's Voy- 
age — Trying Ordeal — Hawaii's Early History and 
Struggle for Existence, 385 

1850 Arrives — Stirring Events on the Northwestern 
Frontier — A Resolute Attempt to Extend the 
Curse of Slavery into Kansas and Nebraska — 
Sailor I Called upon to Intervene, . . . 425 

A Condensed Chapter of Local Events taken from the 
Davenport " Republican " and my Diary — The Capac- 
ity OF THE Wild Man of the Forest and the Plains, 432 

A Large Slice of Ancient and Modern History in a 
Nutshell, Dating from the World's Creation 
down to the Year 1897, Taken from my Diary, . 456 

A Lesson of the Past — Dangerous Breakers in Sight 
BEFORE Us, 511 

Tragedy of the Ocean — A Slave of Pirates — 
Thrilling Reminiscences, 551 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



. Frontispiece 
A.. C. Fulton in 1857, 

iv 
Anchor, 

David Crockett in ,831 ^"""^ ^"^^ ^^ 

56 

A Lady of Chili in 1832, 

** " 88 

The Schooner *'Metamora, 

*' ** 120 

General Santa Anna in 1835 

«« " 152 

Robert Fulton, 

" *' 184 

Indian Chief Black Hawk, 

** *' 216 

Indian Chief Keokuk, 

Half-breed Indian, Antoine Le Claire, . . ** 24 

T ** " 280 

The Wild Girl of the Thousand Islands, 

The Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence, . " " 3i2 

Slash Cheek John's First Day on the Schooner 

"Metamora" IN THE White Man's Clothing, . " " 344 

<' " 408 

President Dole of Hawaii, 

'* *' 472 

A Davenport Electric-Light Tower, 

ti «' 536 

General Weyler of Cuba, 



A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 



CHAPTER I. 

OCEAN SOUNDINGS. 

A T an early day, when James Monroe was President, Sailor I 
opened a diary and took notes of spoken and published his- 
tory and acts that attracted my attention, and also objects, acts, 
and occurrences personally experienced or witnessed; all of which 
occupy many thousands of hastily jotted down pages, a few of 
which I here place on record. 

In 183 1 I entered the Mississippi River, by Pass a la Loutre, 
from off the North Atlantic Ocean, under adverse circumstances. 
At that day this Pass was the main northern in- and out-let. The 
Southwest Pass was used by the Mexicans and the South Ameri- 
can commerce. The now South or Getty outlet was virtually 
abandoned, as it passed but little over three fathoms of water at 
low tide, but it was subject to a change at any time, through the 
river's annual flood. 

Since I first used the passes of the Mississippi River, the land 
has formed and extended seaward over ij league. I have 
noticed its constant formation, and know of what I speak. 
Where then you could with safety sail your ship, or use the pon- 
derous towboats, the " Porpoise " and " Grampus " of that day, 
now, in 1898, shrubs and trees appear. The ever moving, flow- 
ing sediment within the waters of the rivers and the bayous has 
created this annexed territory. Mark! Mark! This creation 
and annexation of territory through invasion, to drive the Gulf 
Stream seaward and curtail the Atlantic's latitude and longitude, 
has not ceased, but has just begun. 



2 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Without question the earth, sand, and gravel, now passing 
down the Mississippi and many other rivers, are three times the 
bulk of that which made the same voyage a half century now 
past. The great change has been wrought through the settle- 
ment and cultivation of the vast South and Northwest extending 
to the Rocky Mountains. Where timber or fixed prairie sward 
once existed and protected the surface from washing, and held 
back the water from rains and melted snow, now cultivated fields 
appear, all adding to the supply of alluvial, and the supply will 
not diminish, but increase. 

Where small, transparent rills once meandered through the 
valleys, or trickled over the bluffs, now destructive torrents with 
fury rush, cutting vast gulches within their course. 

Those dredge boats of Nature, and their transport scows, do 
not operate alone, for the dust of a thousand valleys is swept up 
with care, and the summer's sun and winter's frosts disintegrate 
and rasp the mountain's rocks, to be dumped within the ocean, 
not one speck of which ever leaves its watery bed to return to 
its home from whence it came. 

In 183 1, and previous, I took soundings between Pensacola 
and Cuba, and between New Orleans and Jamaica and other 
ports, and also at a later date, and noted the situation. 

In 1 88 1 I also stood by and saw those same soundings taken, 
and found that the bottom of the ocean had risen by being filled 
during this interval of fifty years. 

The well-known water-marks upon the land witnessed that the 
ocean had not receded, and in the meantime Uncle Sam had 
placed numerous buoys upon the created shoals to mark their 
presence, a precaution uncalled for in 183 1. 

The ocean does not, cannot, control and dictate to the land, but 
the land controls and dictates to the ocean, and will in time side- 
track the Gulf. 

That a constant fill is taking place within the Atlantic is self- 
evident, and Uncle Sam should safely house his Galveston har- 
bor and inlet plows and scrapers, for his labor there is never done. 

On May 12, 1877, soon after a voyage to one of the West 



OCEAN SOUNDINGS. 3 

India Islands, I jotted down more fully this momentous ocean 
change within Editor W. F. Storey's Chicago ''Times." A copy 
of that day and date now lies before me, dingy and begrimed 
through the lapse of time, a witness of the distant past; and the 
intelligent reading world, during a third of a century, well know 
that the Chicago " Times " did not pass through its columns any 
sailor's mere sea-foam yarn; that science and philosophy were the 
passport through which that journal was entered. 

Mark! in centuries, many centuries yet to come, all fathom- 
able seas will be filled above their present surface, to be the home 
of man; such action is nothing new. 

New Orleans, and a vast number of coast plantations, now rest 
upon the once ocean's bed, and other thousands reside where 
once the ocean rolled. 

In the beginning it was not the design that over two-thirds of 
the world's surface should remain a boisterous waste. Economy 
for a time called for the act, but when all present space is filled, 
and Nature's human angel man requires a farm, he will find it 
where the now proud ocean's billows in triumph wave. 



CHAPTER 11. 

A VOYAGE ON THE YAZOO RIVER. 

rA URING 183 1 I made a second voyage, and upon again land- 
ing at New Orleans, although I did not then consider '' on 
shore " a safe abiding place for man, — the houses might blow 
over and crush him, or fire might break out at night and no 
watch on deck to rouse him up, and no sea water at hand to 
quench the lire, but a small supply of any kind of water; and 
the sea's pure salt atmosphere is a tonic that gives elasticity and 
life to man, — yet I desired to view the land of the State of Miss- 
issippi, at that period claimed to be the long-sought El Dorado, 
and many of the Louisiana sugar planters were sending their 
sons and kin into Southern Mississippi, with negro slaves and 
drivers to open up cotton plantations. 

I made a voyage up the Yazoo River to a point then known 
as Manchester Landing, as a deck passenger, on board of the 
steamer ''Yellowstone," the first boat and trip to ship cotton from 
that now historic river. No untoward or other event took place 
to excite or mar the voyage except that one night the boat took 
a sheer on the man at the helm, and one of the smokestacks 
struck the projecting limb of a huge cypress tree growing on the 
contracted river's border, which carried away the stack's stays and 
launched it onto the hurricane deck. We cast anchor, watered 
out the fires, and it was soon reinstated in a wrecked condition. 

I might also mention that, when near the landing, a mulatto fire- 
man, one of the captain's two slaves, slipped and fell overboard 
whilst hoisting a bucket of water from the river, and disap- 
peared beneath the boat's revolving wheel,upon which the captain 
exclaimed, " There goes my nine-hundred-dollar nigger over- 
board! When I purchased him in New Orleans from the Jew 



A VOYAGE ON THE YAZOO RIVER. 5 

Jake Florance, he told me that he sold him cheap because he 
was the most unlucky nigger he ever owned; that he had lately 
been sent for wine, left the valve of a two-hundred-dollar cask 
of the best French wine open, and flooded the storeroom, to the 
great damage of other property; that whipping him done but 
little good, and now he has gone to the bottom, and my nine 
hundred dollars has gone with him, and we are short of hands on 
the boat; and if the white trash on the Yazoo are as worthless as 
they are on Red River, I would not give a picayune for a deck- 
load of them." 

Slave No. 2 said " that was not the worst of it; that when Jake 
went overboard he had nearly a whole plug of tobacco in his 
pocket." 

The yawl was immediately launched and manned, but no Jake 
was in sight. The Yazoo had emancipated the slave, and claimed 
him as her own. 



CHAPTER III. 
A night's journey through the deserted home of the 

CHICKASAWS. 

A LL within our port of entry and the outside surroundings 
was rough and new. Three small log dwellings, two cotton 
sheds, a blacksmith's shop, and a cabaret comprised the settle- 
ment within sight. 

The quarters at Manchester Landing did not appear inviting, 
and a bright starlight night with over a half moon in their midst 
was approaching, and a cotton-team road led to the town of Ben- 
ton, and I had a long lay-off from duty and felt that I could 
weather a long watch, so I resolved to use the first and second 
watch of that night on the lonely road toward Benton before I 
went into camp. 

The plantations and houses were few and widely spread, and 
the same situation existed at all points where I journeyed within 
the State. 

All was new save a few bark and log abodes of the departed 
Chickasaw Indians, who had been driven from their ancient 
homes to give space to the pale-face invader. I passed with sad- 
ness over their well-worn trails and through their once cultivated 
fields, and looked with awe upon the apparently blanketed ghost- 
like bleaching and decaying orchards of peach and other trees; 
and there at midnight's hour, as I trudged along, I inwardly 
prayed for a cock to crow, or the owl of night to shriek, and 
break tlie long and ghostly monotony. Those trees, upon their 
parting from their homes and dead, they had girdled with their 
tomahawks, to prevent the unhallowed pale-face from feasting on 
their fruit, and reaping where he did not sow. 

6 



CHAPTER IV. 

DAVY Crockett's talk at benton, miss. 



W 



HEN I arrived at Benton I learned that the renowned and 
natural orator, Colonel Davy Crockett, a Whig and a mem- 
ber of Congress from Tennessee, was to address the people. The 
hour arrived; an old cart was run into the arena to be used as a 
rostrum. This was my first entry before a backwoods orator, 
and I used my best endeavor to place his words upon my 
memory, but sixty-seven years obliterate and deface a three- 
hours' talk. His purity in eloquence and technical precision 
could not be surpassed by a Cicero. He spoke of the useful 
lives, the actions, the greatness, and the exemption from oblivion 
of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Euclid, Pericles, and others of 
renown, whose wisdom and eloquence astonished an intelligent 
world many centuries before the birth of Christ; and he spoke of 
the greatness of Mohammed and of his ever-living acts, and said 
that worth and greatness were also embodied in the man that 
cleared the thicket, drained the marsh, built ships, erected man- 
sions and factories to give employment and bread to his fellow- 
men; he said ''Apollo built the walls of Troy many long years 
before the birth of Christ! Those walls gave him ceaseless life." 
Colonel Crockett came down to home affairs, and spoke of Presi- 
dent Andrew Jackson lacking executive ability; said that he had 
spread desolation and distress throughout a once prosperous and 
happy land, where perfect felicity had long dwelt, and that he 
had wrecked the ship of state, leaving a very small salvage for 
the people. He then gave the Jackson Cabinet a broadside with 
his heaviest guns, and set into motion a tidal wave of eloquence 
which hoisted me aloft, to float upon an upper gently waving sea 



8 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

of bliss, from which I descended again to earth with bewildered 
eyes and regret. 

Without a doubt Colonel Crockett astonished with his elo- 
quence the Benton portion of creation, and convinced them, as 
he had many others, that he was Tennessee's Crassus, and a more 
than Zeno, and would have done credit to Greece and Rome in 
their palmy days. Yet Tennessee's forests possessed no Epicu- 
rean academy, no vast marble structures, no Stoic school upon 
her Indian trails; yet Crockett was an astronomer and a philoso- 
pher, as well as an orator. Poor sailor I admired his flow of 
soul and flight of mind, although I had very soon to come 
down to the hard-pan of fate's reality. 



CHAPTER V. 

A CANEBRAKE COUCH. 

'T^HE steamer *' Yellowstone " had long since cleared from the 
waters of the Yazoo, and no steamer could be counted on 
previous to the next season's cotton crop, and I was adrift upon 
an unknown sea, with but a small sum of money in my locker. 
Colonel Crockett's words constantly sounded within my ears, and 
gave me courage. I resolved to set out on foot for Vicksburg, 
and thence to the sailor's Alma Mater, the waving deep. 

At early dawn I commenced my lonely journey through the 
primitive forest, guided on my course by a bright sun. Habita- 
tions were few, and near night not one could be sighted, nor was T 
positive in respect to my bearings. I had entered a vast canebrake 
in search of water; had found none when darkness surrounded 
me; to move in the right direction was impossible, so I created 
a light, and gathered up a supply of fuel to secure a. constant 
fire to keep of¥ the wolves and bears, which were as abundant as 
dogs within the poor man's quarter of a town. My weather edu- 
cation plainly told me that there would be a rainstorm, so as a 
prudent sailor I gathered up a lot of broken cane and formed a 
couch upon the damp earth soon to be wet by rain, and then 
bent the standing growing cane from all sides except the fire side, 
over my couch, and with my sailor's sheath knife I cut some cane 
to fill in the vacant spaces and form a Sioux tepee as best I could ; 
a canopy to shed off the coming rainstorm, and also to form a 
rampart against wild beasts. When I lay me down to sleep, I 
thrust the point of my keen sheath knife into a cane stock at my 
side, with its handle toward my hand, that I could clutch it in- 
stantly if my couch should be invaded by wolves or bears. Whilst 



lo A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

lying wrapped in my Indian blanket before that camp-fire within 
the lonely canebrake, and wolves howling round me, though the 
midnight hour had passed, sleep refused to visit me. I there 
debated with myself the question whether I had acted wisely in 
leaving a good and comfortable Eastern farm-house home where 
I could exercise myself planting corn, hoeing potatoes, and picking 
stones from oi¥ the fields in early spring, and husking corn on 
the crisp, frosty mornings of the fall. Better a pleasant chamber 
with a feather bed to sleep on than a bunch of sticks upon 
the cold earth within a Mississippi canebrake, with wolves howl- 
ing round me with gleaming, wistful eyes; or a ship's contracted 
forecastle deprived of air and light, subject to shipwreck with 
trials and hardships beyond belief, which would appall the brave. 
Besides, to be frequently cut down to half rations of cheap, com- 
mon food and water, and whilst passing through this life-consum- 
ing ordeal, to be called upon during all hours of the night or day 
to stand at the helm, go aloft and furl sleety sails, handle a gasket 
with benumbed hands, or encounter a flapping sail to knock me 
from my foothold, and cause my head to ring from the well-di- 
rected and unerring blow, whilst death, with grim visage and 
open skeleton arms, waited to receive me on the deck below. 

Notwithstanding my apparent forlorn situation, — a canebrake 
couch, no. rations, no water, — I was not discouraged. Colonel 
Crockett had raised my expectations to a premium, and I was in 
a state of perfect felicity. There was a world, a wide world, and 
a future — yes, a future — before me for energy and resolution. 
What more could I desire? No anchor, no hawser placed upon 
me to confine me to limited moorings, yet tired nature was claim- 
ing sleep. Time slowly passed and I surveyed the sky for the 
break of morn; no break appeared, and I resolved to leave my 
camp and couch to enter on a new and advancing life. 

T tramped on to Vicksburg, took boat for New Orleans, pur- 
chased some scientific books, and shipped before the mast for the 
distant foreign port of Valparaiso, Chili. The sea's disaster lay 
in wait for our coming, and with more than the fury of a moun- 
tain avalanche rushed upon us. The passengers and crew were 



A CANEBRAKE COUCH. H 

apparently beyond all hope of safety, doomed to be swallowed by 
an angry sea. Gloom and despair reigned within and without; the 
wind whistled through the rigging; gigantic waves swept the 
deck from stem to stern; the power and strife of the enraged ele- 
ments were tremendous; the prospect of instant death took pos- 
session of the hearts of all. The firm masts swayed, the women 
prayed, and I cast myself within the very jaws of death to give 
them life upon a rocky shore. 

1 advanced from sixteen dollars per month as a conunon sailor 
before the mast to second mate, first mate, captain, and owner in 
rapid succession. 

Time's clock struck its hours for years; 1 went on shore, 
studied architecture and mechanism through actual performance; 
procureil a bank account, erected many edifices and factories for 
self, with the ease and facility with whicli I had erected corncob 
houses in my toddling days, before the bright kitchen fire within 
the mammoth fireplace at the old farm-house. I had no trouble 
at all to climb the ladder of progress to independence and worth. 
I projected and consunuuated the construction of railroads, gave 
employment and bread to hundreds, and homes to many; com- 
manded armies in a foreign comitry, made laws for a great and 
prosperous people, and changed the supposed destiny of a nation. 
T did not desire riches, I did not desire power. At that period 
1 would not have parted with a single mechanical attainment for 
John T'icob Astor's rentroll. or exchanged a scientific thought to 
become the ruler of an empire. T rested upon a downy bed 
within a maQ"nificent chateau; mv thouc^hts reverted back to the 
miserable and long night when I lay in distress upon the ground 
in the Mississippi canebrake. At this moment I heard a tre- 
mendous crash; a thunderbolt had rolled from ofif the dark clouds 
above, and toppled down to earth, and caused the canebrake to 
quake and tremble like a coward. My fire was out, rain was 
falling upon me, and T was yet within the canebrake. All my 
prosperity, all my greatness was but a dream, yes, a dream. 
Soon after I had surveyed the heavens to find the approach of the 
morning's dawn I had fallen to sleep; Morpheus had visited me. 



12 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

I rose from off my damp and dingy blanket. The wolves and 
bears, the dreaded inhabitants of the forest, had retreated to their 
unexplored recesses within the dense thickets. A bright sun 
soon appeared and steamed vapor from my dripping blanket and 
scanty clothing, and I with an empty stomach, parched tongue, 
and blistered feet, continued my lonely tramp to Vicksburg, but 
all that day, as I trudged on my wearisome journey, I keenly 
felt my great loss of station, wealth, and power that I had pos- 
sessed while on my canebrake couch, with Morpheus kneeling 
over me. I had supposed that I was a combination of steel 
springs and live-oak knots, and could stand any strain, but my 
faith in self was somewhat shaken by that night's repose and 
morning's thunderbolt. Within the vast primitive forest I lost 
my bearings, struck the Big Black River instead of the Mississ- 
ippi River, but in the latitude of the Big Black I found more 
habitations and population, plenty to eat at a reasonable cost, 
and an abundance of pure drink from God's distillery in the sky, 
deposited in cisterns and in the rippling brook. 

I now had before me, within my course, well-known sound- 
ings. It was a lovely day; the sun shone brightly in the heavens. 
All Nature appeared to rejoice; hope and joy were apparent 
within all life, and I passed over hill and dale, upon Nature's 
primitive carpet of green, made vocal by a thousand warbling 
songsters. And here within a miniature valley appears one of 
creation's tiny lakes which in stillness rests, with its gorgeous 
trimmings of water violets and water lilies, and ferns of beauty 
line its outer borders. A lonely snipe slowly parades along its 
northern verge, and ever and anon thrusts its bayonet-like beak 
into the marshy earth. Highly favored and happy snipe, to mo- 
nopolize so much of nature's silent grandeur, and never re- 
stricted to a short allowance of food and water ! And no raging 
ocean surrounds you. Yes, happy snipe! And here the willows' 
boughs, entwining, cast a shadow o'er the plain to give comfort 
to the sailor from off his couch of cane. Soon I sighted several 
stately mansions with expansive lawns, vineyards, and well- 
selected shrubbery; rare exotics appeared in profusion, and fra- 



AlCANEBRAKE COtJCH. 1^ 

grant jessamines lined the walks. All, all here, is luxuriously 
beautiful; the highly favored residents must possess Aladdin's 
lamp; or was all this gorgeous equipage, and to me astonishing 
display, with its companion ease and comfort, produced by the 
sinews and muscles of African slavery and untimely graves, 
through neglect and hardships, of thousands? Here are no 
howling wolves, no ravenous bears, no drizzling rain upon a cane- 
brake couch, to lengthen night and mar its hours, and place a 
stranded sailor's brain upon the rack. I was within the environs 
of Vicksburg. 



CHAPTER VI. 

A DECK PASSAGE. 

A STEAMER from Louisville bound to New Orleans was an- 
***■ chored in the harbor. I boarded her and paid for a deck pas- 
sage to New Orleans. At that day, 183 1, a deck passage was 
about one-sixth of the price of a cabin passage. You received 
no food, no bed. Your total outfit and privilege were the lower 
deck aft to stand on, sit on, or lie on, and this was a boon to me 
and to thousands of others. Deck passengers laid in their own 
ship stores at the port from whence they sailed, or purchased as 
best they could when making a landing, and thousands have 
journeyed by sea and by river on half rations or less. Many 
emigrants have their bedding and furniture, yet many lone 
adventurers have but their blankets, bearskins, or buffalo robe. 
My shipmates on this voyage were two large families from Ken- 
tucky, bound for New Orleans, and a number of the blanket and 
buffalo class, and also four first-class carriage horses bound for 
the same port. The horses occupied a portion of our deck in 
their stalls aft the wheelhouse, and with their heavy iron shoes 
within a few feet of me opened up a concert of tramping on the 
boards laid for their tramp and bed upon the deck that banished 
sleep, and I concluded that there might be worse quarters for 
sleep and rest than a ship's forecastle. We were not one sin- 
gle night alone on the horse stable deck, but many, for we had a 
large bulk of freight to pick up on the voyage at various ports 
and landings, arri the sturdy roustabouts, in their thoughtless way, 
usurped a large portion of our and the horses' territory with 
their cotton bales, raw hides, and numerous barrels and boxes. 
When the raw hides, which cried aloud with their odors, were cast 
upon our deck, the horses dilated their nostrils, and a Kentucky 

14 



A DECK PASSAGE. 15 

kid exclaimed that there was a dead mule some place not far off. 
Several of the roustabouts were negro slaves, who have the 
utmost contempt for poor white trash, but they treated me with 
marked consideration because I was a sailor, and a sailor in 
their eyes was a demigod and a walker on the water. I there, as 
the horses tramped through the night's hours, thought my des- 
tiny had been harshly shaped, but Neptune to me had confirmed 
the published report that when Christ, when more helpless than 
I, had been quartered in a stable at Bethlehem, and thereafter, 
upon landing within Jerusalem, had been roughly handled by the 
citizens, and he a non-combatant. Whilst on the horses' stable 
deck of the steamboat, wrapped in my blanket, I resolved not to 
lead an oyster life. 

On my return to New Orleans after this inland cruise I again 
shipped for sea, but I secured by purchase and charter a stock of 
books, but not such as many sailors purchase. To know and be 
competent to navigate the intellectual and historical sea, I 
selected works on astronomy, chemistry, navigation, architecture, 
algebra, philosophy, modern and ancient history; some works 
published in the sixteenth century, and reaching back to the 
Olympic Era (which commenced in 776), the founding of Rome 
in 753, and yet back to the founding of the Persian Empire by 
Cyrus in 559 before Christ, together with the more modern occur- 
rences just previous to the birth of Christ, and I have with untir- 
ing energy used my best ability to keep posted up to date. 

The settling up of Australia, Hawaii, and opening up of vast 
Africa and other rapid changes throughout the world, have caused 
the undertaking to be no bagatelle. Eugene Aram committed 
murder to procure books, Sailor I plowed the briny deep at small 
wages for the same purpose; yet knowledge personally obtained 
through keen and untiring study and observation, with an eye 
to the philosophy of all things, celestial and terrestrial, surpasses 
in utility and worth any and all knowledge procured through any 
books ever published by man; self-obtained knowledge adheres 
to the mind and soul of man as do barnacles to the hull of an old 
ship. Books are but tools to work with; yet, as I said, the 



1 6 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

talented Eugene Aram committed murder to obtain the tools, and 
he became the superior of his teachers. 

Within the early years of this century, especially in the farm- 
ing districts, no schools existed except during a few months in 
the winters, and most of them were presided over by some 
learned farmer who had to take hold of the plow in the early 
spring, and they were located miles distant from sailor me, but 
a good Quakeress mother, a graduate of the Weston Pennsyl- 
vania Quaker boarding school of the last century, laid the keel 
and drafted the hull of the ship of letters, to be completed and to 
receive its sails and rigging. 

Experience told me that a vast majority of even far-distant 
sea voyages were quite tame affairs ; hardships may be many and 
severe, yet life exists to be repeated, hoping each voyage for bet- 
ter fate. The sailor that doubles Cape Horn with sleepless nights 
and aching limbs will ship to double that cape again, and even 
desire to meet the death-dealing monsoon once more, and the 
frozen Arctic explorer will return to the frigid North to freeze 
again, and sailor I did the same — shipped again. 

The sailor's pay has always been at a low figure; back when 
Madison was President, and George III. desired to be our king, 
and many years thereafter, twelve dollars to sixteen dollars per 
month was the sailor's pay, and considered to be a fair allow- 
ance, and the pay to officers was at low figures. To be a Jack 
Tar, in the common conception, is to drop self down into the 
very bilge-water of degradation. Uninformed and mistaken 
world! Since the days of sailor Noah, many have been whose 
monuments should now sweep the clouds, and upon them should 
be written in indelible letters of gold, The brave, the noble, the 
great. The spirit of the imperishable Trismegistus possesses a 
monument, and had not the then rakish, but now immortal Edgar 
Allen Poe, when stranded and a wreck, shipped " incog " as a 
common sailor, on board of a Baltimore topsail schooner bound 
for Jamaica, and quartered in a forecastle, a halfway house be- 
tween Pandemonium and Paradise, and fed on pork and beans, 
the literary world would have never have strained its vision to 



A DECK PASSAGE. 17 

see his Raven, or sighed for his lost Lenore. Never, never; I 
know of what I speak. 

I have now before me an Eastern journal, which publishes as 
follows: 

" IN MEMORY OF EDGAR ALLAN POE. 



''Shakspere Society to Preserve His Quaint Cottage Home. 

" New York, September 24. — The Shakspere Society of New 
York is raising a fund to buy and dedicate to the poet's memory 
the quaint cottage on the Kingsbridge Road, where Edgar 
Allan Poe starved and thirsted and cursed the publishers who 
knew not genius when they saw it, and where he paced the floor 
in a wild rage of grief while his wife lay dead in the little hall 
room and there was no money in the house to give her burial. 

" The city is widening Kingsbridge Road, and the little 
cottage will have to be moved. The society proposes to set it 
back thirty or forty feet, take out the modern improvements, 
and restore it to the condition in which it was when the Ameri- 
can genius chafed and wrote and hungered there. 

" The property will be bought with money raised by the sale 
of six hundred shares of stock at $25 each, issued to mem- 
bers of the society or those eligible to membership. The place 
will be converted into Poe headquarters, and every relic of the 
poet that can be obtained will be placed there. 

" Appleton Morgan, President of the Shakspere Society, and 
Albert Frey, its Secretary, are trustees of the Poe Cottage fund. 
The purchasing committee consists of Harrison Grey Fiske of the 
Lotus Qub, Nelson Wheatcroft of the Lambs Club, and J. Henry 
Magonigle of the Players Club." 

Edgar shipped on the schooner to get away from himself. The 
prayer of Sailor I is that the Shakespere Society will succeed. 

It almost appears as if the seafaring world considered it to be 
a duty to sacrifice life and comfort to aid mankind; never did 
live a more sacrificing class of men. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE " ROLLA'S " VOYAGE IN 183I. 

AS history, I desire to mention that on a voyage from the port 
of Philadelphia, in the fall of 183 1, now over sixty-seven 
years past and gone, we transported on board of the brig " Rolla," 
a Philadelphia square-rigged vessel, and I believe, her first voy- 
age, a Mr, Cameron of Lancaster, Penn., and his some 180 
laborers, all Irish except three Scotchmen; I have since that day 
understood that this Mr. Cameron was an elder brother of Simon 
Cameron, Secretary of War during President Lincoln's adminis- 
tration, in the days of our Rebellion. This Mr. Cameron had a 
contract to excavate and perfect what was long known as the new 
basin and canal extending from the junction of Rampart and 
Julia streets, in New Orleans, to Lake Pontchartrain, and this 
canal passed almost the entire distance through a cypress swamp, 
with its surface but a trifle above the waters of the lake and the 
Mississippi River, at an ordinary stage of water, and at some sea- 
sons of the year below the waters of both. I have, by self-meas- 
urements and levels, found the river over four feet above the 
streets within the center of the city of New Orleans. The water 
was then flowing along the street gutters on back and down to 
Lake Pontchartrain. The design was to cleanse out the street 
gutters. The river water passed through sluice-ways guarded 
by gates placed within the ancient levee of Spanish days, thrown 
up to hold the mighty Mississippi within its bed. This Cameron 
canal was a fair sample of M. De Lesseps' Panama Canal, save 
in length; the sick list was constantly large, and so were the 
money demands and deaths many; but time and perseverance 
drove back the waters, removed the boggy, mucky earth and 
giant cypress trees, from the branches of which cloudlike moss 



THE "ROLLA'S" VOYAGE IN 1831. 19 

dangled in the air, and venomous reptiles crawled through their 
foliage, and beneath them the alligator floundered through the 
stagnant water of the swamp, to find an unshaded spot to 
bask beneath the morning sun. No flowers or shrubs there ex- 
ist to glisten with drops of dew; autumn brings no gorgeous 
colors or radiance to the cypress tree; it lives and dies dressed in 
green. There is within the Southern cypress swamps a curiosity; 
it is a stump without any tree on it; such stumps are called 
cypress knees; they grow generally from two to three feet 
in height, and as much as fifteen inches in diameter, with 
rounded or knee-shaped tops, and cause clearing or exca- 
vating to be expensive, as the more dense the woods the more 
numerous the knees, as Pennsylvania Cameron found to his cost. 
This Lake Pontchartrain Canal had been commenced with 
slave labor and mule teams, for whilst we were on our voyage, 
and I was aft at the helm during dog watch, I heard contractor 
Cameron, between the long puffs of his Havana cigar, say that 
he would change the programme and utilize the white men and 
horses, as in Pennsylvania, on the canal work; that he had no 
faith in mules and negro slaves; they had been at work on the 
canal, but when the yellow fever and a torrid sun put in an 
appearance, the negro and the mule, as ever, had to step forward 
and fill the breach. The mule and the negro have been factors 
in American history, and have taken a leading part; without 
either, General Grant might have been born, but never would he, 
without both, have been President. When Mr. Cameron reached 
his works, he recruited his forces with men just arrived from 
Ireland. Very soon a bitter geographical feud sprung up be- 
tween North and South of Ireland's champions; pitched battles 
took place with shovels, spades, and picks. Many were 
wounded; the Scotch that we transported on board of the 
" Rolla," and three Irish Orangemen, had to flee from the camp 
to save their lives. The Northern Irish were in the minority, 
but they were cool and skilled in diplomacy. They had kept 
on the sunny side of the few black slaves on the works, and when 
on the very extreme verge of desolation, and all hope had van- 



20 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

ished, they appealed to the blacks for aid, but under the Louisi- 
ana laws it was death for a slave to shed a white man's blood; but 
the negroes rushed to the front, and butted the far-downers into 
the canal, a charge that decided that day's battle. The negro 
slaves had the vantage ground; they were sober; many of the 
whites were less than half sober; the law forbid selling whisky 
or any strong drink to slaves; to do so was a crime. They did 
not desire it, and it was disgusting to many of them. 

The geographical question soon came up again with greater 
violence; a priest was sent for, and arrived whilst the battle raged. 
He immediately seized a negro teamster's blacksnake whip, and 
lashed the disorderly combatants right and left, crying out, 
" Shame on you," and he could use a whip to tell, for he was a 
well-built Irishman full six feet in height; I believe he was called 
'* Father McMullen." I so entered him on my diary. He 
possessed the courage of a lion, yet was as gentle as a dove. 
Suddenly the fighters all dropped their weapons and separated in 
a meek manner. The good priest then ordered them to be seated 
on their wheelbarrows or the earth; all immediately obeyed; then 
he scored them deeper than had the blacksnake whip. He told 
them that they had disgraced themselves, mankind, and their 
Church. All admitted their wrong and pledged themselves to 
no more raise their hands in violence, and they kept their pledge. 
Many persons cried, *' Bad men, bad institutions." I said, then 
and now, if bad now, what would they be without a Church, a 
religion, and a God. 

On the " Rolla's " voyage we had favorable winds, and made 
a splendid run from the Delaware until she was off the west 
coast of Cuba, when she was driven southwest by a tempest; then 
came days of dead calm, and what we at first reckoned to end in a 
short voyage ran up into thirty-eight days. As there were many 
on board, and the water was freely used, even wasted, and the 
casks were refilled with sea water to keep up ballast, and no count 
taken of the number so filled, the first thing known was that we 
had very little water for the large number on board, and pro- 
visions were also scant, especially forward; the consequence was 



THE "ROLLA'S" VOYAGE IN 1831. 21 

that we were put on one pint or one tin cup of water for each 
twenty-four hours; this in a tropical chmate was a trying ordeal, 
and rations of food were also cut down. The black cook, on one 
or two occasions, slipped to me a tin cup of cabin-intended cofifee 
and three or four potatoes. The boiled potatoes were delicious, 
and the coffee was fragrant in aroma. Whilst I was ravenously 
consuming those stolen luxuries, the boiled potatoes and coffee, 
my thoughts ran back to the halcyon days of the Hyperboreans, 
to the great Herodotus and the sacred feast of Apollo. I was 
not an Apollo, I was but a Jack Tar, yet I then feasted, and many 
years thereafter that feast cost me several hundreds of dollars. 

During this voyage we came very near shipwreck; one night 
when running before the wind at not less than ten knots to the 
hour, with all sail set, we rushed past the double-headed Shot 
Keys of the North Atlantic Ocean, and so close that I could 
have tossed a biscuit onto them. I was amidship on deck, and 
I felt the spray strike my face; I hastened forward, and found the 
watch snoozing on the hencoop; to have struck would have 
knocked the brig into a wrecked mass, and all, or nearly all, on 
board would have there found a watery grave, and I now would 
have to tell the world that Pennsylvania Cameron and his 180 
workmen, when on a voyage in 1831, were wrecked upon the 
double-headed Shot Keys, and all there perished save Sailor I — 
and true, they have all now perished. One of Mr. Cameron's 
youngest men, aged twenty-one, died on the voyage, and we had 
to give him a tomb beneath the flowing waters of the Gulf of 
Mexico. During the funeral I was named to be the next on the 
dead list. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE OCEAN DESERT. 

\A/ HILST we are on the Gulf of Mexico, and in the vicinity of 
the double-headed Shot Keys, and their adjacent neigh- 
bors, the Little and the Great Bahama, I will mention them, as 
they have a claim to space in American history. 

The Little Bahama bank extends from Maranilla reef in lat. 
2y° 45' N. and long. 79° 20' W. to Abaco Island, and extends 
west to the Gulf Stream, the water varying from one to eight 
fathoms in depth. 

The Great Bahama bank is 340 miles in length by an average 
breadth of no miles, occupying 37,000 square miles of the At- 
lantic. It might be proper to say, extending from the Salt Key 
northeastward to San Salvador. There is a greater and more 
equal depth of water on the latter bank; it runs from three up to 
nine fathoms; many sunken rocks exist in several localities, and 
are very dangerous to the inexperienced or thoughtless mariner. 
A perceptible fill of sand and pebbles has taken place on some 
portions of those banks during the past sixty-five years. Those 
sterile water deserts of sand are covered by transparent and 
pacific water; every sponge, every pebble, every sprig of coral, 
can be plainly seen from ofT the deck. This ocean desert is 
larger than that of Asia's sterile sands, and possesses no shells, 
no marine vegetables, no fish, no life; and here and extending 
south and to the Isaac's Islands, and the Dog Keys, upon those 
banks and within their vicinity, many, a great many vessels have 
been captured by pirates in early days, or wrecked, and their 
crews sent to watery tombs. 

Good reader, I commit no errors, for I claim to know the 
waters of the universe as you well know your door-yard's walks 
and the halls of your domicile. 

«9 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE SLAVE TRADE. 

ABOUT the close of our war with Eng-land in 1815, and up to 
1832, Cuba was in the height of her prosperity; she had 
entered largely into the cultivation of sugar and tobacco, which 
commanded good prices, and many persons of wealth left Spain, 
or sent agents, to become planters in Cuba; the consequence was 
slaves, and slave labor was in demand, not in Cuba alone, but in 
the United States. Africa had to furnish the first stock and for 
many years keep up the supply, as plantations were opened and 
death reduced the stock on hand. Most of the slaveships were 
owned and manned by Portuguese and Spaniards, their homes 
being adjacent to Africa, they possessed great advantages over 
far-distant slavers. French and English ships and crew^s were 
in the traffic at an early day. After several nations had con- 
demned and attempted to prohibit the traffic by making war on 
the slavers, it was continued to a large extent by stealth. The 
slavers possessed speed, heavy armament, and large crews of des- 
perate men. Almost all slavers were pirates when a favorable 
opportunity afiforded, but most generally whilst on their outward 
voyage. They have been known to strip merchant vessels of 
even their water, water casks, and ship stores, when the cargo 
was not such as they desired for traffic in Africa, compelling the 
wronged vessels to enter some port for supplies, when they did 
not cut the throats of all on board or compel them to walk the 
plank to their death. 

The first cargo of slaves brought into the United States was 
brought by a Dutch man-of-war, and sold for $150 up to $175 
each. In later years ordinary field hands sold at prices from 
$500 up to $900. I knew a dark mulatto, a fancy painter in 

23 



24 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

marbling and graining, to be sold for $3000. He was self- 
taught and had no superior or equal in that line. His purchaser 
was a painter by the name of Clannon; his shop or store was 
located on Magazine Street, New Orleans, and $500 would have 
been a large price for his master Clannon. Frequently seam- 
stresses and child nurses, if good-looking, would sell for $1000 
up to $1500. 

That the reader of 1898 may form some idea of an auction sale 
of that portion of creation, written to be created in God's image, 
I copy from Bonner*s New York " Ledger " my communication 
to that journal during our Rebellion, in which I rehearsed, as 
best a sailor could, an auction sale of negroes in Savannah, Ga., 
during the thirties, and which is thus published in the ancient 
" Ledger " now before me : 

"my last days in savannah. 
"{Scene — Auction Room) 

" Auctioneer and clerk. Thirty negroes for sale, large and 
small, male and female, of all shades from coal-black to almost 
white. Fifty gentlemen and six negro traders assembled to 
purchase. 

" Auctioneer takes the stand. * Gentlemen, I am now going 
to oflFer you thirty likely negroes — mechanics, field-hands, house- 
servants, seamstresses, and several children. Terms: one-half 
cash; the balance at ninety days, with mortgage. 

" ' I will first ofifer you the quadroon girl Lydia ; sixteen years 
of age, kind disposition, child's nurse and seamstress, warranted 
against the vices and maladies prescribed by law. 

" ' What is offered for the girl Lydia — $900 — nine hundred dol- 
lars — nine hundred dollars — $1000 — one thousand dollars — 
one thousand dollars — $1100 — eleven hundred dollars — eleven 
hundred dollars — $1500 — fifteen hundred dollars — fifteen hun- 
dred dollars — fifteen hundred dollars by a new bidder; fifteen hun- 
dred dollars. The young gentleman near the west column will 
have to advance, or he will lose this pleasant-looking girl. [At 



THE SLAVE TRADE. 25 

the same time giving the audience a knowing wink.] Fifteen 
hundred and fifty is bid — fifteen hundred and fifty — no one bids 
more — all done; last call — once, twice, three times. Sam High- 
flyer — she is yours, and a likely wench she is too, and cheap at 
that. 

" ' I will now offer you this family of seven — Solomon Gumbo, 
Dorcas, his wife, and five children, Victoria, Albert, Achilles, 
Jenny Lind, and the infant Floyd. All warranted against the 
vices and maladies prescribed by law. 

What is the bid for this family of valuable negroes? ' 

" Old gent in slouch hat. — ' Who in hell wants all these small 
whelps? Put up the old ones separate, and they will sell better.' 

" Auctioneer. — ' Can't do it. I am instructed by the owner 
not to separate this family. What is bid for the family, in bulk 
— $1700 — one thousand seven hundred dollars is bid. $1800 — 
eighteen hundred is bid. Can I get no better offer? If not, I 
must knock them down — once, twice, three times. Judas Ben- 
jamin, they are yours.' 

'' Judas (to Slouch Hat). — ' Now, sir, if you want the old ones, 
I am ready for a trade ; give me fifteen hundred dollars for them, 
and they are yours.' 

'' ' It is a bargain, and we will take the liquor on it.' (Retire 
to the bar, and I departed.) " 

Habitual drunkenness, and the habit of trying to escape from 
slavery, are among the vices. Fits, defects of heart, and other 
diseases are among the maladies prescribed by law. 

To protect the home product from competition, some States en- 
acted laws against bringing slaves within the State for sale, under 
the forfeiture of the slaves. Georgia was one of the prohibitory 
States, and it immediately became known that Lydia had been 
imported from the State of Delaware, to bring a good price in 
Georgia, and she was confiscated to the State, to be resold as its 
property. Time revealed the fact that, to escape from Sam, she 
had informed the authorities that she was contraband. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE PIRATE SCHOONER AND THE MYSTERIOUS GIRL. 

TN August, 1829, we cleared from Havana, Cuba, for Boston, 
with the schooner " Thaddeus," Captain Spicer. We had 
entered on the Bahama Banks by the old channel of 1746, and 
whilst running before a fair wind we had observed a schooner 
with lofty raking masts, directly in our wake with all sails 
set, and steering in the same direction, and overhauling us fast. 
We paid little attention to her for some time, supposing her to be 
within the regular line of legal commerce, when a shot was fired 
which struck near a cable's length of¥ and beyond our larboard 
bow. We could see by the glass that her decks were full of 
men; we had a crew of nine, all told; seven old short- 
range muskets, two old navy pistols, two large-bore double- 
barreled shotguns; one of which I had utilized on the old 
farm when low down in the teens, to slaughter lamb-killing 
foxes and catamounts, all flint-locks; a 6-pound cast-iron 
signal cannon — a miserable outfit for the defense of America's 
tiag and ourselves. To make all worse, sailor gloomy Jo 
consoled us by saying that without a doubt every one of us 
would have to walk the plank, or have our throats cut within 
two hours; that it was Sunday, and that all the hard luck and 
deaths and burials he had ever witnessed in twenty years at sea 
took place on Sunday; that he had felt it in the wind when he 
came on deck in the morning watch. The captain, who knew 
every rod of sea upon the Bahama bank, and who had but a few 
minutes before the firing gone below to turn in after a long 
watch, hastened excitedly onto the deck; his first words were, 
"An impudent act; where did the ball strike?" When told, he 
said the intention was not to sink or cripple us, but 

26 



THE PIRATE SCHOONER. 27 

to make us heave to; that if he had suspected this a few hours 
sooner he could have put on sail and left the pirate far back in 
our wake, " but I shall give that stranger some trouble. Mate 
Potts, you take the helm, and pay close attention to the stranger. 
I want all hands forward. I shall immediately spread all sail 
and then rig a jury-mast, as we have plenty of spars and sails. 
I can give her a knot more an hour, if we are not blown out of the 
water. Larboard your helm, Mr. Potts; hard larboard, Mr. 
Potts! " ''Aye, aye, sir! " Whiz came two shots, striking the 
water but a few feet from the schooner. We were gaining head- 
way when the fourth shot came; it was aimed too low, and struck 
the water but a few feet from our rudder. " Is she now follow- 
ing us? Has she changed her course since we did? What is 
your opinion, Mr. Potts? " " Yes, sir; she has." " So I thought, 
and she will regret that she fired those shots." "Goodness!" 
exclaimed gloomy Jo, " what is up? Her topsail has ripped in 
two and gone over her bow; down goes her mainsail. What is 
up?" ''I can tell you, boys," coolly replied the captain; "her 
bow is stove in, and she is sinking. I led her in her chase onto 
the sunken rocks." The captain, glass in hand, said: Disman- 
tle our jury mast and furl sail. The pirate has lowered three 
boats, and is placing barrels and boxes in them; they will aban- 
don the schooner and make for some key or island." Near 
one hour passed when the captain reported that they had struck 
oi¥ southwest— a fact that we all could see from aloft— and that 
it would not be good generalship for the '' Thaddeus " to proceed 
on her voyage without visiting the wreck, and seeing what she 
was, and how she was, and all about the situation, but at the 
same time to keep our old muskets and sharpened sheath knives 
and boathooks in place, and that it would be prudent for the 
cook to keep up a good fire under his coppers of scalding water, 
and have his dippers at hand to scald the pirates if some of them 
have remained on board to ambush us and secure our schooner. 
Our numbers were small, and arms very poor and unworthy of 
the name, yet we had resolved, from the firing of the first bandit 
gun, to open up an ocean Bunker Hill, and stand shoulder to 



2S A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

shoulder in the strife for hie and supremacy to extermination, 
and then no surrender, none! But our good and wise captain 
deprived us of the experiment when it was not over one hour 
distant from its maturity. The heavens above and the ocean be- 
neath had vohniteered in our behalf. We tacked back and 
beyond the armed schooner, furled sail, and before the wind cau- 
tiously and successfully came alongside the pirate and made fast 
to her. It was immediately decided to send some one of our nine 
on board the piratical craft to reconnoiter for the enemy. The 
captain and the crew correctly estimated my life to be of a smaller 
value than that of the older Jack Tars, and with a glittering sheath 
knife in my belt, and the old flint-lock shot-gun in my hands, 
I leaped upon the pirate's deck, and on the double-quick ad- 
vanced to the open companionway of the cabin and peered within, 
and reported that about two feet of water flooded the cabin floor, 
but that no piratical enemy appeared in sight to give me battle; 
all was as silent as the tomb. I then hastened to the main hatch ; 
reported no pirates, but floating empty barrels, boxes, and rub- 
bish, and that upon the first break the water nad rushed in 
rapidly, for boxes and barrels and packages were driven to an 
aft bulkhead, and it was then running in and increasing in depth. 
I hastened back to the cabin and passed down into the water 
to investigate and report the situation, but goodness! what a 
sight met my gaze; upon the made-fast dining table that stood 
in over two feet of water, lay a young girl cold in death. I 
rushed on deck and announced a dead girl in the cabin. All 
hands, with fire-arms presented cautiously, followed me back into 
the cabin. We surrounded the table, which was but a few inches 
above the water, and gazed with fixed eyes, and with astonished 
and excited countenances, upon the cold but smiling form before 
us. The age of the girl was reckoned by our crew to be from 
fourteen up to sixteen years. No marks of violence appeared 
upon her, and she was splendidly dressed and arranged with 
great care; all showed that she was dressed after death for her 
departure. A stateroom bedspread was folded and placed under 
her; a second spread, lighter and smaller, was placed under her 



THE PIRATE SCHOONER. 29 

head. She had on an ash-colored silk dress, trimmed in front 
with Honiton lace, a gold chain, with a cross of the same material 
set with diamonds, was around her neck; a pair of diamond ear- 
rings glittered in her ears; two jeweled rings were on her fin- 
gers, and diamond-set bracelets were clasped around her wrists; 
she had on light violet-colored silk stockings and white satin slip- 
pers; her extremely long dark hair, approaching black, was drawn 
down under her body, and held in place by a costly pink-colored 
Spanish sash; her complexion was transparent, and her features 
were expressive, even in death. Then came the query, who was 
she? when did she die, and under what circumstances had she 
lost her life? and for what reason was she abandoned when the 
boats departed, or why not gently dropped beneath the waters 
of the ocean? Mate Potts said, from the great care taken of her 
after death, she was the buccaneer owner's or the captain's 
daughter, and that her mother was on board and had left the 
sinking schooner and taken to the boats w^ith the crew; that no 
man ever rigged up the girl in that style; that he had never seen 
such rigging in all Nantucket; that he had two girls and one boy 
in Nantucket, well grown up, and should know all about it. He 
knew that the sailors had objected to shipping the dead with them 
on a perilous voyage, and had they not, it would have taken up 
space, and have been an incumbrance to have done so, and that 
her mother, like all women, looked upon a sea grave with horror; 
and a mother would object, and that she had been dressed and 
placed on that table as her last resting place; that he, when a 
young sailor, and when most all nations were in slave trade, and 
many reaped a profit through piracy as well as through the Afri- 
can slave trade, had frequently seen the wives of buccaneer ad- 
venturers and of captains on board of slave ships and on board 
of pirates, just as we now frequently see them on board of mer- 
chant vessels; that many women relished excitement and cruelty. 
One of our sailors said he knew all about it; that the cut- 
throats had choked her wind of¥. The captain said, " No time 
to theorize," that it was a mystery impossible to solve. Then 
came on board of the now captured pirate, and the schooner's 



30 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

crew, the first reverse wind that the stanch and renowned " Thad- 
deiis " and its Spartan band of nine had ever encountered. A 
woman in it — no not a woman, but a young girl, if not an angel. 
The controversy was over the young girl and her effects ; the lat- 
ter, several sailors thought, the cook included, should be divided 
equally, claiming that some vessel would pass that way and 
strip the wreck and the dead. I objected to molesting any of the 
girl's property even within her stateroom, claiming that I had 
made the discovery and should have a voice on the subject. The 
captain and Bible John thought the same. John was called Bible 
John because we had two Johns, and this one read his Bible every 
Sunday. John No. 2 was called Profane John. 

I requested permission to take the dead girl onto the " Thad- 
deus," and, after we sailed a few leagues or less from the wreck, 
to give her an ocean grave just as she then was; the captain and 
all hands agreed to this, except gloomy Jo, who said that bad 
luck would follow us if we took that girl on board. I had a crow- 
bar passed down to me, and I pried of¥ a store-closet door to use 
as a stretcher; we gently slid the young girl, with her bedspreads 
under her, onto the door, and placed a sheet over her, and care- 
fully conveyed her to the aft deck of the '* Thaddeus," and placed 
her under the care of the cook, who was on watch and had been 
during the investigation and inquest over the mysterious girl. 

The pirate carried two 6-pound brass cannon, four 12-pound 
carronades, a Long Tom, and a 2-pound swivel at her bow, a 
large quantity of small-arms and ammunition, and some slave 
shackles; our captain concluded to confiscate one of the 6-pound- 
ers, some ammunition, and some muskets, nothing more. We 
found on the pirate a good pair of heavy Spanish blocks and a 
strong fall ; tackled them on the pirate's upper works, passed the 
fall to the captain, and in thirty minutes we possessed a superior 
brass cannon ; our iron cannon had been double-charged with 
powder, and jammed full of lead slugs and spikes to its very 
muzzle, and we feared to fire it in time of peace. Gloomy Jo 
said it was no toy, and he was our gunner. He had made his 
mark of merit under the renowned Conimodore Decatiir ne^r 



THE PIRATE SCHOONER. $1 

the close of 1815, when the commodore captured on the Mediter- 
ranean an Algerine frigate and a brig carrying twenty-two guns. 

Gloomy Jo was a marine escort for Decatur, when he, with 
pomp and show, met the Dey of Algiers to negotiate and sign a 
treaty of peace and commerce with the United States. Jo was 
also under Decatur at Tunis and Tripoli. Decatur was sent by 
President Madison and Congress to punish the Algerines for 
their constant piracy, murder, and depredations on our com- 
merce, and he did as directed. 

Whilst the balance of our crew were rigging up a purchase to 
hoist the big gun onto the " Thaddeus," I requested the cap- 
tain's permission to again enter the pirate's cabin, to investigate 
the situation; my request was granted, but very soon after enter- 
ing, the power used in hoisting the cannon, and launching it onto 
the deck of the " Thaddeus," caused the pirate schooner to careen 
and rapidly settle down at the stern. The action drew the bow 
from the rocks that had entered it, and the sea rushed in upon 
me like a mountain torrent, and in a few moments flooded the 
cabin to the deck above, and I came within one single minute's 
time of usurping the dead girl's tomb. 

We took a reef out of our sails and parted from the wreck be- 
fore a gentle wind, and I, a few points more than half drowned 
and dripping wet, hastened to prepare the mysterious and unfor- 
tunate young girl for her watery grave. I formed a sling out of 
a strip of canvas, secured two 6-pound shot in it at some twelve 
inches asunder, placed the shotted sling under her body so as 
to bring one of the shot on each side of her, passed the ends of the 
sling upwards over her body and made the ends fast; I then 
placed the Spanish pink scarf over the sling to hide its roughness; 
we took soundings; found four fathoms of water; cast anchor as 
agreed upon. 

Apathy did not exist, and no stoic heart was on deck. We 
put a plank on the schooner's gunwale, placed the deceased 
upon its outer end. Bible John read from his book the funeral 
service, with a voice and solemnity that would have done credit 
to a Beecher, In part he said, " 1 am the resurrection and the 



32 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

life, saith the Lord; he that beheveth in me, though he were 
dead yet shall he live; and whosoever believeth in me shall never 
die." 

We then gently raised the inner end of the plank and launched 
her into her grave, to mingle with the departed spirits of the 
good. There was no pomp, no trappings of grief, but the simple 
homage of sailors' hearts. The willing waters received her 
body as Heaven had her soul, and not a ripple marked 
the spot; the waves of ages wdll roll her funeral dirge 
within this ampitheater of waters; the grandeur of which, 
with its chandeliers above, the Milky Way, the rainbow 
and stars placed around the bright sun and moon, no human 
architecture can rival in beauty and magnificence, and beside 
which the Colosseum of Rome, which exhausted the wealth and 
genius of a nation, sinks into insignificance. 

If on death no hasty flight to Heaven takes place, then when 
the signal trump shall pierce her ear, beneath the cold water's 
flood, her form and features will appear in new life before her 
God. 

Bible John was of¥ watch and went forward to the bow's ex- 
tremity, coiled himself up on the deck, and read his Bible by the 
fast departing sun. Upon looking down beneath the sea we saw 
that the mysterious young unfortunate had found a befitting 
resting place. A coral mound was at her head, and coral resem- 
bling wreaths was strewn around her, all as clear and pure as 
monumental alabaster, and her jewels shone as bright as when 
she lay upon our deck. 

The captain, who had gone below during the funeral, hastened 
on deck and impatiently ordered anchor weighed and all sails 
set. Gloomy Jo, with quivering lip and flushed vision, hastily 
glanced beneath the waters, and exclaimed, '^ Now I know how 
an angel looks! " and big Jake, as he took a parting look at the 
coral grave, declared he would never give quarter to a pirate, 
and as he stepped upon the ratlines to go aloft, he wiped from 
his eyes briny tears with the sleeve of his red flannel shirt, and 
railor T, with my rough, tar-smeared right hand raised toward 



THE PIRATE SCHOONER. 33 

Heaven's grand blue arch, vowed to the goddess Diana to battle 
against piracy and slavery to their extermination, and years 
thereafter 1 was elected a life-member of the Northwestern 
Freedmen's Aid Commission, headquarters in Philadelphia, as a 
dingy certificate of life membership now before me asserts. The 
cause for adopting me I never knew. 

After we entered Boston's port, I daily overhauled the news- 
papers at the sailors' Bethel reading room, to find the captain's 
say respecting the pirate schooner and the mysterious girl. I 
knew he was a man of few words, and that he used no big, 
rounded periods. After a lapse of six days the then leading 
Boston " Journal," a 22 X 34-inch daily, remarked as follows : 

" Ye scribe, whilst on his daily rounds among the shipping, 
called on Skipper Spicer, of the good schooner ' Thaddeus,' who 
had quite an experience on his late voyage from Havana, Cuba, 
to this port. Whilst on the Bahama Bank a long, rakish 
schooner carrying the Spanish flag, and heavily armed and 
manned, gave him chase. He put on extra sail, ran off his 
course, widened the distance; his object in changing his course 
was to lead the pirate onto sunken rocks that he knew to exist in 
that latitude. The pirate drew more water than did the ' Thad- 
deus'; soon four shots were fired, but immediately after them 
the pirate got on the shoals and stove in her bow on the sunken 
rocks, and soon commenced to sink; she had three boats, in 
which her large crew left her. The captain and his crew went 
on board of the sinking pirate and exchanged their old cast-iron 
signal gun for a first-class brass one and some small-arms and 
some ammunition. The brass gun was a curiosity to ye scribe, 
as he had never before this seen a pirate cannon, and this was an 
awful wicked-looking gun; and the captain and his men were 
greatly shocked to find a dead girl in the pirate cabin. The skip- 
per said that he thought that the girl's kindred were on board, 
and that she had but recently died from some sickness, perhaps 
hastened by the gun-firing; some of his crew desired to remove 
the girl, who was well rigged up, from the wreck, and give her 



34 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

what they called a decent send-off, and as they had acted very well 
he consented, although it used up time. The skipper said that 
when the pirate went down he came very near losing a young 
sailor whose curiosity had taken him into the constantly increas- 
ing water of the pirate's cabin, and he came out of it looking like 
a drowned rat, and was blowing like a whale. He did not want 
to lose the young sailor, for he was very useful to help the mate 
in working up bearings correctly, but he came within a knot of 
going to Davy Jones' locker. The ' Thaddeus ' is now freighting 
for New Orleans, and is now taking on board cobblestone as 
ballast and small pay to be used to pave streets in New Orleans. 
This cobblestone commerce, as well as lime, cement, and granite 
to New Orleans, from some portions of the East is quite exten- 
sive, especially the lime commerce from Thomaston, Me. The 
chief cargo of the ' Thaddeus ' is Boston-made clothing and do- 
mestic goods from the Eastern factories. The captain said that 
the ' Thaddeus ' will, in the future, enter into the New Orleans 
and Tampico trade. Tampico is one of the Gulf towns and ports 
of Mexico.'' 

Singular as it may appear, our good captain after ordering all 
sails set, when on the Bahama Banks, and after the great excite- 
ment of that Sunday of the lone girl's funeral, never mentioned 
the occurrence to any one of his crew, although the lives of all 
had been in jeopardy during the trying ordeal, and not a word 
was spoken by him of the occurrence until the Boston " Journal " 
spoke. Sea captains seldom speak to their crews except to order 
them to their duty, yet they have their trials; I have seen more 
than one captain of renown, whilst a tempest raged, with doleful 
visage sound his every pocket to its lowest depths, then, with a 
look of sadness, meekly ask a sailor for a chew of tobacco. 

Sailor I could not ameliorate the sad condition or render any 
assistance, as T never carried or used the smallest particle of to- 
bacco in any form. My good Quaker father had said, '' Do not 
ever adopt the worthless and injurious habit." 

I stated that I had received the captain's permission to enter 



THE PIRATE SCHOONER. 35 

the cabin of the pirate schooner and investigate the situation ; my 
desire was to obtain, if possible, a clew, a knowledge of the dead 
girl's history. I entered what I am quite positive was her state- 
room; it had a single narrow berth, bedding in disorder, had not 
been made up as all others had been; she must have been in it 
that day, perhaps sick; the room contained a small stand made 
fast, a small looking glass, a low-seated chair that had been 
made low by roughly sawing off a portion of the legs; the saw 
cuts were old, not recent, and were the cook's or steward's work; 
I know their mark. The bedding of all the berths was flooded 
by water, but this one the deepest; it set lower. I found in an 
upper rack two pair of low-cut shoes ; one pair old and well-worn 
in all parts, showing long use; they were children's size, No. ii; 
the second or newer shoes were No. i, misses' size, the same 
size that the departed had on her. Within this rack I found two 
books; one an American Comely spelling book No. i, and the 
other the first English Reader, both well thumbed, showing long 
use. Both of those books were the very same class and make 
that my mother used when instructing me. I immediately 
turned to some pieces in the Reader that I had committed to 
memory. On the fly-leaf of one were drawn in pencil a sea gull, 
a porpoise, and a dolphin; on the other were a whale, a gram- 
pus, and a flying-fish, and in both the name Mary Stacy was 
written twice, the last or lower writing much better than the 
upper, showing a different period of writing. At first glance I 
saw that the drawings closely approached to life. There was no 
sketch of any land animal, reptile, or bird. Upon hooks within 
this stateroom were numerous dresses hung up in place; a furni- 
ture screen hung over them; two or three were plain common 
ones that appeared too small for the girl, and several too large for 
the departed, but gorgeously trimmed as I fancied, but a sailor 
is not a connoisseur in furbelows and flounces, and there was no 
Paris Worth, at that day. 

Our captain had said that respecting the young girl all was a 
mystery; my investigation told me that the pirates had captured 
^ merchant or passenger vessel and put all to death saye this one, 



36 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

then a younger child, or quite a girl that innocence and beauty 
saved, most likely through the intercession of someone, perhaps 
an under officer, the steward, or possibly a sailor, as I had done 
in protecting the wardrobe and funeral outfit of this young girl 
of mystery from ruthless hands, and gave her a befitting tomb. 
I am fully satisfied that no mother, no woman ever dressed up the 
departed. It was a man, or men, most likely the cabin steward, 
the man of all work. No woman ever dressed her, for one of her 
stockings was wrong side out; the contrast between them was 
slight yet plain to see, with thought. One of her bracelets was 
put on her wrist wrong side up; I changed it whilst on our 
schooner, and a portion of her Honiton lace trimming was tucked 
in and very much out of place. No woman dressed her. All the 
jewelry, which was very costly, was too large for her. Its once 
owner, without a doubt, had been compelled to walk the plank of 
death into her grave. Pirates say the dead tell no tales, and 
although hastily launched from the lower world, I hope an om- 
nipotent Jehovah kindly received her and conducted her to the 
habitation of the gods, and the home of angels, celestial fields of 
purity. 



CHAPTER XL 

CHILI AND VALPARAISO. 

T MENTIONED Valparaiso, a seaport town in Chili, and at an 

early day one of the best known and most important seaports 
within South America. Many have expressed astonishment 
that the Chilian pioneers should have selected such a rough, un- 
sightly location for a city as that of Valparaiso, when far superior 
harbors and town sites existed. I see no astonishment in the act; 
all pioneers are profound philosophers, and philosophers are 
poor judges in small affairs; they soar above the surface. 

In the thirties Chili was known by mariners as the Shoestring 
Nation, because her territory was of great length in proportion to 
its breadth, but Sailor I must not enter Chili or South America 
as did Mrs. Trollope or Mr. Charles Dickens enter North 
America, to open up a miserable junk-shop of literature. I 
would scorn the act! I know this people. The men are active, 
with receptive minds; and are noted as judicious lawmakers and 
skilled in diplomacy. The women are intelligent, amiable, beau- 
tiful, and accomplished, and possess the poetry of motion; nobly 
endowed with hearts of the tenderest affection, yet they can bit- 
terly hate wrong and injury. Those human angels of the tropics 
would be a model for the most refined. 

As all well know, Chili embraces a tract of territory lying 
between the summit of the Andes on the East, and extending 
west to the coast of the Pacific Ocean; its northern boundary is 
in lat. 25 S., at the northern verge of the desert of Atacama, a 
dry, sandy plain, and extending south to the Straits of Magellan 
where it strikes the Patagonian territory, giving it an average 
■breadth of about 145 miles, by a length of over 1400 miles. 

The Republic possesses 203,000 square miles of territory, 

37 



38 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

something less than our State of Texas. If you desire the 
romance of horror, an interesting journey never to be forgotten, 
ah that is necessary is to travel to Central or South Chili, by the 
desert route of Atacama, from Peru, instead of the lengthy and 
tortuous Andes Mountain journey. You will then require no 
expert guide, as a continuous white line of bleached and decaying 
bones of mules and men marks death's journey in advance be- 
fore you. 

The lofty Andes traverse the continent of South America, and 
upon them there are several volcanoes now in active eruption. 
The vast fall of snow upon the Andes tempers the air and renders 
the climate delightful, and also creates many rivers, most of them 
too rapid to be navigated except for a short distance. The body 
of water flowing within this little republic through its sixty rivers 
is greater than that flowing through the territory of both France 
and Germany combined. 

The Atacama desert, with the lofty Andes and with the ocean, 
form barriers against invasion of Chili by land forces. The 
numerous rivers, bays, and vast ocean frontage have been instru- 
mental in making her a maritime nation. It was and is the 
ocean's breeze and waves that gave Venice, England, our Eastern 
seacoast States, Chili, and Japan an active, hardy people and the 
ascendency. 

Chili possesses a soil of great fertility, and a pleasant climate. 
Her spring commences in September and her winter in May, 
but the winters are mild and the springs beautiful. I consider 
her soil unsurpassed for fertility, and her system of irrigation is 
not excelled. Fruits of all kinds are produced in great per- 
fection. Barley, wheat, Indian corn, hemp, flax, and olives grow 
luxuriantly; cotton and sugar do well, but in the thirties their 
cultivation was very limited. Mines of gold and silver and cop- 
per of extraordinary richness exist. Santiago is Chili's chief 
city; it, unlike Valparaiso, possesses a beautiful site, and with its 
boulevards and magnificent grandeur and gayety, it is a Paris in 
miniature. It rests on the south shore of the Maypa. A vast 
and fertile plain stretches out around it. The city was founded 



CHILI AND VALPARAISO. 39 

by Don Pedro de Valdivia, in 15 14. This was a half century 
previous to any white settlement within any of the Middle States 
of North America; the first settlement within those having been 
promoted by Queen Elizabeth in 1584. 

The Chilian republic dates its birth in 1817. Its first revolu- 
tionary movement for independence took place in 1810. This 
republic possesses many fertile and valuable islands within the 
Pacific, and off Valparaiso is located the historic Island of Juan 
Fernandez, whereon the wayward Scotch sailor Alexander Sel- 
kirk, of the Cinque Ports galley, was a voluntary exile for many 
years, and who also was written up in 1829 by John Howell, as 
Robinson Crusoe, and published in Edinburgh, Scotland. 

A desire to know all that is remarkable in history or in man is 
implanted in every mind, but Sailor I must cut off at both ends, 
and not extend the chain of events. 

Chili has schools throughout her domain, and also has many 
well-constructed churches, convents, hospitals, a military school, 
universities, and a mint. In 181 1 Chili abolished the con- 
tinuation of slavery by enacting a law that all children of 
slaves born in the future were declared to be free. This act of 
justice took place in Chili over a half century before the law- 
makers within North America even knew the word emancipation. 
I stood upon a pinnacle of the Andes, above the home of beasts 
or birds; a mantle of slowly melting snow was spread around. 
My thoughts reverted beyond three centuries, when Balboa, 
the Spanish cavalier, knelt upon the Cordilleras to thank the 
great Supreme for permitting him to look upon a then unknown 
ocean, and within one single minute I cast my eyes with wonder 
and astonishment upon the territory of three prosperous nations, 
a never-to-be-forgotten sight. A truly sublime panorama of na- 
ture was spread out before me. I possessed a small American 
flag which I greatly desired there to wave, but etiquette and the 
courtesy due to the nations whose protection I was then under 
forbid the act, so I dof¥ed my well-worn tarpaulin hat, a respected 
emblem of all nations, and also of the gods of the seas, and waved 
it triumphantly in the pure, unadulterated, and salubrious air of 



40 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

the Andes. The hanging misthke atmosphere at the distant west 
told my experienced eye of the presence of the vast Pacific 
Ocean. Dark clouds of hydrogen swiftly rushed northward be- 
neath my feet, and struck an accumulation of invisible oxygen; 
the collision immediately caused vivid lightning to flash and 
thunder to shake the mountain; a shower of rain ensued that fell 
within the valleys below, whose large, cultivated, and variegated 
fields to me appeared from ofif my great height like the small 
patchwork of a girl's crazy quilt. I was not surprised to see the 
falling rain and its companions, thunder and lightning, beneath 
me, for my good mother had informed me of the result of the 
chemical combination; and far above me were Heaven's celestial 
plains, where gay transport and beauty reigned amidst scenes 
divinely fair. 

If it would not appear presumptuous in a sailor, I would greatly 
desire to extend what I know to be wholesome advice to the good 
people of Central and South America. If you would permit me 
to speak I would say, gentlemen of the now independent states 
or nations known as South and Central America, without delay 
or quibble over unimportant trifles, unite firmly in one grand 
national compact, as did the States of North America, and with- 
out that compact not one independent state would this day exist 
within the New World. Upon this act alone rests your exist- 
ence as a people. They, the States of North America, placed 
within the atmosphere of this continent the undefinable essence 
of liberty, where it continues to linger, and the trumpet of liberty 
must never call a retreat. 

The absolute necessity of your combination is plainly to be 
seen in the horoscope of time and events. This momentous 
federation should be immediately entered upon, as it will require 
time to consummate the gigantic structure of a nation. 

All narrow- or broad-minded personal aspirations for station 
within the several states should give way for the general good. 
The field for genius and greatness will not be obliterated but ex- 
panded. This federation will give you a power that will com- 
mand respect; it will secure you a more economical form of gov- 




DAVID CROCKETT IN i8^i. 



CHILI AND VALPARAISO, 41 

ernment; it will diversify your industries and give you renewed 
energy and confidence in your stability. 

Place your capital near the center of your territory. Eacli 
state can pay its own indebtedness, or reduce the excess down 
to an equality. The best man, or a fair man most likely, would 
be elected as the first President of the Republic of South America. 
You are a people of quick perceptions, and can frame and main- 
tain empire. You must firmly unite and drive bloated monarchy 
from within your midst; when it obtains a foothold it becomes 
a pestilence difficult to eradicate. You must be wary, for like a 
thief it comes in the night. Good people of the sumiy South, 
please cast your eyes back to May's first days, 1895, when Great 
Britain's vast ships of war were in safety anchored in your bays, 
chiefly manned by Irish slaves; their open magazines in regula- 
tion order, and their huge artillery in range upon the " Royal 
Arthur " and other death-dealing engines, to bombard Nicara- 
gua's Corinto, and send men, women, and children to untimely 
graves— this unrighteous proceeding to obtain seventy-five thou- 
sand dollars; and in justification of the bombastic act, those high 
in authority simper and say, National Honor. As a nation they 
possess no honor. For empire and conquest they employed In- 
dian savages, and the more ferocious German Hessians, to indis- 
criminately slaughter men, women, and children in North 
America. Look, look, at the wanton cruelty at Valley Forge, 
the horrors of which have been portrayed to me with tearful eyes! 
by the bleeding sufferers of that day. 

They invaded India, claiming to bestow protection on the 
natives; yes, such protection as wolves give to lambs. When the 
natives dared to raise their hands for home and self, they were 
lashed before the cannon's mouth, and blown into bloody, quiver- 
ing fragments, a barbarous act; but never-sleeping retribu- 
tion will claim its right to adjust the wrong. 

When they conquered Ireland they forbid the Irish to manu- 
facture goods for selves or sale, and they are now hoping that you 
and Hawaii may step upon their Lion's tail that they may treat 
you the same, and this year, 1895, the mangy, pampered Lion is 



42 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

threatening little Hawaii for daring to protect themselves and 
their homes from Britain's perjured runagates. 

This morning's journals of July 24, 1895, whilst I write, report 
that perfidious Britain is now claiming the Island of Trinidad, 
and is landing a cargo of coal upon that island, without a doubt 
for military purposes. vShe desires to create a Gibraltar there to 
dictate to the New World. The day has arrived to test the effi- 
ciency of the Monroe doctrine with dynamite. 



CHAPTER XII. 
England's cruelty to the maid of Orleans. 

\ J OW good reader, please to calmly sit in judgment respecting 
^ the right or wrong of the wanton cruelty practiced by the 
English and their tribunal upon the heroine and never-perishing 
Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans, a poor girl who, when the 
Dauphin waned and England had overrun France in 1429, fired 
with patriotism, she armed and placed herself in the front of 
battle, and drove Great Britain from many garrisoned cities, and 
placed the ungrateful Charles VII. upon the throne of France 
in 1 43 1. The heroine Joan was taken a prisoner of war, and as 
such was tried by a British commission and sentemced to a cruel 
death, — a death that would be a disgrace to the savages of the 
Hawaiian Islands, — to be burned alive at the stake. Did a just 
God then reign in 1431, and was he in possession of the heaven's 
thunderbolts, and yet permitted the unhallowed decree? Truly, 
very truly the horrid act was consummated, and a just God did 
then reign, to in the distant future deal out justice to a proud and 
cruel nation. Was this an august and just tribunal thus to 
cruelly treat a prisoner of war whom they had sought to slaughter 
within her own sacred home, and she a girl under nineteen years 
of age? Good reader, you are the judge; render your decision. I 
do not claim to be an expert in terrestrial or divine rewards and 
punishments, but my crude judgment is that it was an unright- 
eous and cruel act for which a life of penance could not atone. 

The English to hide their infamy, induced more than one weak 
woman to come forward to act the impostor, and claim that they 
were " Joan," but they were immediately detected. It would 
have been just as well to attempt to deceive a latter age with a 

43 



44 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

fraudulent General Bolivar of South America or General Grant of 
North America. 

Years back English journals attempted to justify the cruelty 
by writing the words, " a desperate woman, and early days in 
knowledge." Goodness! I say, early days; the foundation of the 
arts, sciences, philosophy, and literature had been laid and 
brightly shone for many ages previous to that date. The ruins 
of Assyria, Athens, and Carthage were long rebuilt; Cicero, 
Plato, Socrates, and Demosthenes had astonished and enlight- 
ened an intellectual world centuries previously, so no ground 
existed for the plea of early day, but mark! mark! retribution is 
now marching forward on the double-quick by night and day, to 
right many wrongs of injustice and wanton cruelty by Great 
Britain practiced. 

Citizens of South America and Hawaii ; it will never do for you 
to wrap yourselves in the cloak of procrastination, and imagine 
yourselves equipped in secure armor. Mark! Great Britain, to 
obtain territory and enslave a nation, will stealthily encroach on 
Venezuela to drive her to the wall, then to be conquered and 
be compelled to subdue Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and beyond, 
for British provinces to be governed by the Lion. 

A few lines and a little ink tell you of tlie loss of territory and 
nationality, but in addition comes perpetual slavery through 
ghastly wounds, loss of limbs, starvation, sickness, and lingering 
deaths; your wives and little ones to be numbered with your dead. 

Look at Spain's Cuba, taxed through generations from the 
cradle to the grave to fatten monarchy, and this day (May 23, 
1895), warm human blood there flows to cement the irons of colo- 
nial vassalage, and within this flow of blood is that of Cuba's 
republican president, the great, brave Jose Marti, who openly 
stepped forward in an unequal combat and bared his breast as 
a target for the barbed arrows of tyranny. Never did a monarch 
of proud Spain, with braver or nobler heart, depart to his account. 
Mark! the day will come in which his towering monument will 
be erected upon Bica de dos Rios l)attlefield where he fell. 

I do not desire to be the instrument to excite and create com- 



ENGLAND'S CRUELTY TO THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 45 

motion and bloodshed; far be the act from Sailor I, yet I claim 
to possess a fair knowledge of the rights of man. Mankind, 
through God and Nature's laws, inherits combativeness, and 
through the same source they inherit a desire for glory and re- 
nown, and pride themselves in their possession as individuals and 
as nations; therefore man combats for his rights; yet few, very 
few know of, or can they ever conceive the horrors of war, 
wherein man meets man in deadly strife, when all save victory 
and vengeance departs from his mind and soul, which is nature 
in nature's purity. 

Some Spartan mother, as she presses her infant boy to its pure 
fount of life, may solicit kind Heaven to permit it to become a 
soldier of renown, and cause the world to admire and applaud its 
acts of bravery. Good madam, do not, please do not offer up 
to the great Supreme such a supplication. You little know the 
horrors of war. That you may possess a faint knowledge of its 
horrors, please stand beside me on this eminence overlooking the 
city of Vera Cruz, whilst this battle rages, and the city is bom- 
barded by land and sea. Look along the offing of yonder 
Gulf, at the vast array of stately battle shif)s, their broadsides 
facing the city, with decks cleared for action, and every man at 
his post, to move and act with the precision of a Hoe printing- 
press, to slaughter or drive the inhabitants of the city — men, 
women, and children — from their homes. Now cast your eyes 
inland upon that long line of breastworks with its yawning 
artillery ready to belch forth their iron hail and mimic the thun- 
ders of Heaven; see beyond, at its right flanK, a troop of cavalry 
ranged in line with gleaming swords, soon to have battered edges 
and dripping with warm human blood from point to hilt. Now 
sulphuric smoke slowly arises to cloud the atmosphere and veil 
the sun; now the roofs and rafters of dwellings topple down upon 
the heads of the shrieking and trembling occupants who rush to 
the street to meet death in the open air; observe the city forts and 
blockhouses — they are but mere toys, and are scattered to the 
winds. Look, look, yonder flees a young mother with a headless 
infant in her arms; hark! the trumpet sounds a charge; the 



46 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

cavalry with fury comes rushing on. Halt! halt! they will 
not halt; they trample mother, infant, all within the dust; 
and yonder totters a soldier endeavoring to stay his flow- 
ing life-blood with his left hand, whilst with his right 
hand he wields a saber in his country's cause. Such, 
good reader, are the horrors of war, and such will be the 
scenes within Central and South America, many of which 
scenes will pale my experience, here given, into insignificance. 
Become not dejected, depressed, or dispirited, but onward march 
to empire and to greatness; kind Heaven smiles upon the perse- 
vering and the just. You are now in worth and knowledge as a 
people, two centuries in advance of the then ignorant barbarian 
English when at your age of national life, and you are full three 
centuries in advance of Germany, counting by worth and knowl- 
edge, when ninety-five per cent, of all the German nation were 
willing, submissive serfs to ignorant, tyrannical masters, inferior 
to many of the American savages. This is history's true record. 

Worthy and ancient friends of my sailor days, who kindly 
aided me when cast aw^ay upon your shores, hungry and almost 
naked through the surging billows of an angry sea, latitude then 
and now unknown to me. 

Mark! vultures of empire, with keen eyes and longing crops, 
are now hovering around to gorge you down ; listen not to Brit- 
ain's vows; they are false as dicers' oaths. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

A VOYAGE TO JAMAICA; ITS EARLY DAYS. 

IN 1 83 1 I made a voyage before the mast from New Orleans, 
bound for Jamaica and Hayti. The shipping papers, signed 
and delivered, said $17 per month, which was an advance on pre- 
vious months of $1. I saved the larger portion of each $17, put 
it to work for me, and it created a large sum of money. Since 
that day I have seen telegraph operators, and many others who 
were receiving $120 per month, distress the world and injure 
themselves and families by striking for more. To strike is right, 
but to forbid your fellow-man, unless a member of the Debs or 
Sovereign clan, to earn bread for his wife and little ones is an 
odious crime that justly merits transportation to some lonely isle 
where you could exhibit your ability to build up and govern. 

My West India voyage, as many others, was uneventful, but 
there was history mingled with the cargo of that voyage; a por- 
tion of the brig's cargo consisted of twenty-seven ex-slaves, — a 
portion of them once the property of John MacDonogh, a Scotch- 
man with large possessions, and residing within the MacDonogh 
suburb to Algiers, on the Mississippi River opposite New 
Orleans; those slaves he had set free on condition that they would 
make their future homes in Africa or Hayti, — and twenty other 
free blacks, most of them natives of Louisiana. Mr. MacDonogh 
had settled at Louisiana at an early day, accumulated money, 
purchased many slaves, worked a portion within his town limits, 
and a portion in erecting buildings in New Orleans to rent. He 
made his own brick with slave labor; cut his own wood to burn 
them with in the cypress swamps, by slave labor. He considered 
the African slaves competent and fitted for every duty; slave 
driver, coachman, and his own barber. He got up a system of 

47 



48 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

emancipation 'or his slaves, charged each slave with the cost 
of his or her purchase, with interest added, and, if home-born, 
with their market value. They were charged with clothing and 
food and doctors' bills, together with some profit to pay for dead 
negroes. Each slave was credited for all his working time at a 
fixed rate of wages made by the master. Through this system 
many obtains 1 their freedom, but most of them, before they 
could work out their large indebtedness, were too old to start 
out in a new world, and the Louisiana laws prohibited freed slaves 
to remain in the State after they were emancipated. Some of the 
old women refused to accept of freedom when broken down by 
old age and a life of hard work. They exhibited good judgment. 

Mr. MacDonogh was a close, saving master; he never injured 
the health of his slaves by overfeeding them, but he was a mild 
Scotchman, and governed without abuse. 

My daily diary, now before me, reads thus : " December 30, 
183 1. The Island of Jamaica is now in sight. It lies ninety- 
five miles south of Cuba." Then follows : " We found a busy 
port, and a large number of vessels in Kingston's harbor, the 
flags of many nations waving at their mastheads. An inland 
journey showed me Blue Mountain, with its summit elevated over 
6000 feet above the sea; the climate on its lower elevation is de- 
lightful. The soil of the island is extremely productive. Its 
extent is but 153 miles in length east and west, with an average 
width of 55 miles, giving it an area of 8415 square miles; a trifle 
larger than the State of New Jersey, which embraces an area of 
8320 square miles. 

" During British rule, from 1656 to 1830, Jamaica's small terri- 
tory averaged a slave population of 500,000, being about three 
slaves to each free man on the island. 

" This island was one of Columbus' discoveries in 1494, but the 
first land sighted by him in the New World was the more north- 
ern neighboring island, San Salvador, discovered October 12, 
T492. This island was for over six years supposed to be the 
mainland of this continent." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE MAROON WAR. 

A T this day, 1897, Christian thousands suppose or claim that 
England as a people and a nation is exempt from the crime 
of dealing in and supporting human slavery. Mistaken mortals, 
you know not the world's history of but yesterday. 

Whilst speaking of Jamaica's isle I must exhibit within my 
Life's Voyage England's official barbarity and perfidy, as 
penned and set afloat by Englishmen. And I had many of the 
acts and scenes graphically rehearsed to me by the gray-haired 
tottering black veteran Maroons of Jamaica's war siege of 1798, 
who escaped from transportation and slaughter by the British 
barbarians through flight to the mountains' summit; and I also 
verbally received the sad history from aged British officials, who 
blushed with shame as they unfolded the blood-chilling roll of 
past British enormities and infamies, which I, in a comprehensive 
manner, then entered on my daily diary. 

No fiction of war's horrors and Spartan courage or allegory 
within any act of mimic life was ever written to equal this sad 
reality here enacted and placed on record of nature's men. A 
few thousand half-naked, uneducated, and untrained blacks, who 
had escaped from their Spanish and British masters, together 
with some of the half-breed descendants of the aboriginal inhabi- 
tants of the island, and who were destitute of proper arms and 
equipage and of food, save the roots of wild plants and the ber- 
ries of the forest, for years setting at defiance and defeating and 
slaughtering proud Britain's well-armed regiments, under the 
command of lords and generals of renown, with their Cuban 
bloodhounds and artillery, to be finally conquered by base and 
cowardly deception and perjury. 

49 



50 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

The Maroon warriors were favored by their agiHty on a moun- 
tainous island, with a heavy growth of timber, thickly surrounded 
by a thick growth of thorny bushes, which were their defensive 
ramparts, and their indomitable courage and endurance made up 
for their lack of discipline and numbers. Their unadorned, un- 
washed, and ragged chief, Cudjoe, placed himself in the front of 
battle to receive the British lead or meet a bayonet charge. 

The ever vigilant and agile Maroons constantly ambushed and 
routed their foe, and finally took the offensive and drove in the'r 
outposts, and attacked their supposed safe quarters. 

After many disastrous battles in which the English troops 
suffered greatly from the unerring muskets of the Maroons, 
loaded with slugs cut from bars of lead, Lord Balcarres, who was 
chief in command and Governor of the island, set a price upon 
the heads of all who did not give up their arms and surrender 
within four days. He had previously proclaimed martial law 
throughout the island. 

Lord Balcarres having resolved to subdue the blacks, he con- 
centrated his forces and called to his aid troops from on board the 
English war frigate " Success," which was in the ofifing, ready to 
set sail with the Eighty-third foot. Colonel Fitch; a regiment num- 
bering one thousand. He divided his forces into three divisions, 
and the Governor took command of four thousand militia and 
five hundred regulars to surround and capture the Maroon town, 
but he found the town deserted and stripped of all that was valua- 
ble; but Chief Cudjoe and his blacks were not far distant and, as 
ever, in position to give battle. He suddenly, with the fury of a 
tempest, attacked Colonel Sanford's division on both flanks, 
throwing them in great disorder; Colonel Sanford was shot dead, 
and also almost every man in his division, without the Maroons 
losing a single man, and getting possession of a large supply of 
valuable and much-needed arms and ammunition. 

Bloodhounds and their trainers were then procured in Cuba, 
and a war of extermination was entered on. 

The Maroon bands did not act in concert but separately. The 
most active and feared was the band under Chief Cudjoe, whose 



THE MAROON WAR. 51 

army never exceeded one thousand warriors. To meet and sub- 
due this ragged negro and his small and poorly equipped army 
Lord Balcarres had the aid of Generals Walpole and Palmer, 
and Colonels Gallimore, Fitch, Guthrie, Jackson, and Sandford, 
and Majors James and Godly, and Captains Lee, White, and 
Bacon. 

No sooner had this handful of brave men, less than one thou- 
sand, who had faced death in many engagements, and out- 
generaled Britain's renowned generals, and defeated their well- 
drilled regiments, surrendered, than they were, in violation of 
stipulations, shipped to Nova Scotia and thence to Sierra Leone, 
by a decree of the House of Assembly. 

In consideration of their arduous services, the pusillanimous 
House of Assembly voted Lord Balcarres seven hundred guineas 
for a sword, and also voted five hundred guineas for a sword for 
General Walpole. Lord Balcarres accepted the gift with thanks, 
but the noble General W^alpole, who felt ashamed of the per- 
fidious act, contemptuously refused their gift, as the act of ban- 
ishment was in violation of the stipulations of surrender drawn up 
by Lord Balcarres and himself, which sworn-to treaty declared 
that, if they would give up their arms and surrender, they should 
not be banished from the island. 

The Duke of Kent, who inspected the Maroon prisoners when 
they landed in Halifax after being very roughly treated whilst in 
transit, declared them to be the most perfect and finest body of 
men that he had ever seen. They were tall, erect, well-built, and 
most of them jet black. 

The wilder half- aboriginals, true to their nature, refused to 
surrender and trust the white man's oath, but took flight to the 
mountains' craggy summit. 



CHAPTER XV. 

HAYTI, AS SHE WAS AND AS SHE IS. 

\ A / E met with kind treatment at Hayti's Port au Prince, and 
President Boyer shook hands with John MacDonogh's 
once slaves, and took an interest in them. Hayti or the Saint Do- 
mingo RepubHc, known at an early date as Hispaniola, has sev- 
eral rivers, but none are navigable for commercial vessels. Her 
exports consist in part of cotton, sugar, coffee, ginger, tobacco, 
logwood, and several kinds of valuable woods; gold and silver 
exist in small quantities. 

Volcanoes have existed, and Mount Cibao's summit is elevated 
6450 feet above the sea. When nature's freak, with its powerful 
capstan down below decks within the earth, hoisted up this vast 
bulk of sand, rock, earth, and gravel, to its dizzy, towering height, 
it at some other point sank the then deep sea, with its thousands 
of pounds' pressure to the square inch, on down to a now un- 
fathomable depth. 

Hayti is the second in size of the Isles of the Antilles. Its ex- 
treme length is 410 miles, with an extreme breadth of 180 miles. 
The island, together with its adjacent islands of Gonaives and 
Tortuga, has an area of 32,100 square miles, equal to 20,544,000 
acres, which is a trifle larger than our State of Maine, as Maine 
contains 31,766 square miles, or an area of 20,330,240 acres. 
Maine was admitted into the Union in March, 1820, as the 
twenty-third State. 

Hayti's lowlands and a large portion of her mountain-lands 
are very productive; a desirable climate, but subject to hurri- 
canes and an occasional earthquake. 

And here in 1494 was planted the first white man's settlement 
within the New World, and here at Hayti, the aborigines were 



HAYTI, AS SHE WAS AND AS SHE IS. S3 

swept by the ruthless Spaniards from off the earth, not through 
refined but cruel deaths to deter their kindred, and some were 
carried to Spain to be used as slaves, and within threescore years 
not an Indian existed upon Hispaniola's blood-soaked soil. And 
here was first planted the curse of African slavery, to be followed 
by retribution to the whites, to avenge the red and the black 
man's wrongs, and here, in 1791, when a war of races swept over 
this island, the mulatto and the black were pitted against the well- 
armed whites; the color line was drawn, and the pale-face was 
vanquished, and a black became Emperor, to be followed by 
more than one black President of the once slave island, who 
negotiated treaties with great and powerful white nations, and 
governed the whites upon the territory where they had toiled as 
slaves under the lash. The great falling off of commerce, agri- 
cultural and all productions, plainly exhibited the fact that ex- 
slaves took a rest from toil, or adopted the eight-hour system, 
in lieu of the previous fourteen-hour task; and here, in the late 
years of 1700 and early years of 1800, buccaneers hovered round 
Hayti and the Bahamas as thick as wolves in Mississippi, and 
were a terror to the commercial world, until after our war of 
1812; and here the first Christian African church of the world 
raised its voice in prayer to the great Supreme; and here, in 
1801, Napoleon I. sent his troops and ships of war to reconquer 
France's revolted black province, but he soon relinquished the 
undertaking, although he had the aid and sympathy of every 
white upon the island, and the well wishes of thousands of slave- 
holders at a distance; but the blacks well knew that defeat was 
slavery and death. Finally France, during President Boyer's 
administration, entered into stipulation with the blacks to relin- 
quish all claims and acknowledge Hayti's independence, in con- 
sideration of the payment of thirty million dollars for driving 
France's subjects and their masters from their palatial homes, 
and slaughtering some of them. The thirty million dollars, a vast 
sum for slaves residing on a small island to procure, was paid in 
full, and Hayti's independence was by powerful France acknowl- 
edged, and the defeated Napoleon signed his name and title to 



54 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

a parchment with the black slave President; and here came the 
world-wide-known Stephen Girard, once a common sailor, with 
his fleet of merchant vessels, as ever just in time to coin money 
rapidly by furnishing passage to the fleeing white planters of 
Jamaica and Hayti, together with their vast treasures that they 
had procured through the labor of the four hundred thousand 
then living slaves and over seven hundred thousand dead ones. 
Many of those slave-masters rushed their wealth, their silver 
plate, jewelry, and gold on board of sailor Girard's vessels, and 
lost their lives on shore, never to follow their treasure; others 
paid their one thousand or five thousand doflars passage money 
to any port of safety; all could not be saved, and those who could 
must pay. 

Now, in 1897, the Germans throughout the world are in 
ecstasies, and are applauding their King William's courage and 
bravery in claiming twenty thousand dollars and threatening 
Hayti's negroes with battle if they refuse to pay the sum he de- 
mands to be paid to his lawless subject. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE African's future. 

A T a later period Mr. McDonald shipped a larger number of 
his emancipated negroes to Liberia, on the southeastern 
coast of Africa or Guinea. Liberia was selected as a negro 
colony and republic by Henry Clay and associates, in 1816. The 
association was known as the American Colonization Society, 
and Liberia was designed to lc the home of emancipated slaves 
or other blacks. At that period the territory secured by the 
society embraced an area of 25,000 square miles or 16,000,000 
acres, an area larger than the States of Maryland, Delaware, an 1 
New Jersey united. Maryland possesses an area of 11,125 
square miles, making 7,120,000 acres; Delaware has an area of 
2121 square miles, or 1,357,440 acres; New Jersey has an area 
of 8320 square miles, or 5,324,800 acres. Liberia's territory has 
since been enlarged by purchase of territory from the native 
African princes. The town of Monrovia was named by Henry 
Clay. The well-known river Mesurado flows through the terri- 
tory. 

The black territory is governed by a President, a Senate, and a 
House of Representatives. In one respect our once slaves have, 
in their sagacity and keen perception for the public good, eclipsed 
in judicious and far-seeing statesmanship our boasted wisdom. 
They, in their primary act in forming their laws, enacted that all 
persons entitled to vote at an election, or holding an of^ce with"n 
the republic, should have an interest in the country through 
being the possessor of real estate and a taxpayer, to support the 
country that gave him a living, protection, and of^ce; this quali- 
fication was essential to give the voter or lawmaker an abiding 
interest within the republic that he desired to govern. The con- 

55 



56 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

sequence is, when foreigners walk from off the ship's gangway at 
Liberia they do not immediately seek office, as in America; the 
result is that all who control have a direct interest in the public 
good. 

Had the Pullman and Chicago strikers and rioters owned their 
homes, ever so humble, then no troops would have been called 
to arms, nor could walking chiefs, with itching palms for gold 
and a train of perjury, appeared to stir up strife, with the destruc- 
tion of life and property. 

In my days cf recollection, no white man could become a citizen 
of Liberia and hold office or vote. This was right and proper, 
and those were grand conceptions of statesmanship for the general 
good, and for the preservation of the Black Republic; without 
this foresight its existence would have long since been blotted 
from off the earth, for the numeious votes of the adjacent black 
natives, controlled by some white Boss Tweed, would have taken 
possession, and consumed all that was consumable. No foreign 
control, or dictation, or gripsack rule, is permitted within 
Liberia's dark borders. 

Liberia was declared an independent republic in 1847. They 
have schools, churches, newspapers, post offices, two ships or 
corvettes of war. Several nations have opened trade with them. 
They export coffee, ginger, hides, indigo, palm oil, ivory, gold 
dust, rice, and other commodities. 

England recognized the republic in 1848. The wild native 
Africans can Ijecome citizens upon complying with their laws. 

I desire to place on record for far-distant time, some seven 
centuries hence, not a prediction — sailors do not pose as proph- 
ets — I speak from visible, yet far-coming events. The incipi- 
ency is now. The horoscope of* the future does not cast a dim 
shadow, but presents a substantial reality, and I here daguerro- 
type the substance. From small drops the streamlet flows. All 
know that the Africans possess a vast territory, so large that at 
this late day of the world it is unexplored and almost unknown; 
that within its climate the native blacks enjoy health and increase 
and multiply, and the white man there perishes. All of you well 




A LADY OF CHILI IN 1832. 



THE AFRICAN'S FUTURE. 57 

know that the Africans, male and female, can, and have, endured 
toil, privation, and every species of cruelty and hardship, and that 
they possess a brain of high grade, and capable of receiving and 
retaining an unlimited education; and they also possess an un- 
paralleled capacity to create or produce the necessaries and the 
luxuries of life. Good reader, here in America you well know 
that they provided for and supported many millions of whites, 
gave them riches and comfort, and at death costly tombs, whilst 
they and their offspring were dumped beneath the earth in the 
cotton, the rice, or the cane field, with or without a rough 
cypress box, to fertilize the earth; tliey, the Africans, at the same 
time, supported themselves and their own families. Their 
capacity for usefulness has never been surpassed by man, and 
now their white inferiors cry, Worthless nigger! and beat and 
bootheel them if they dare to work within a coal mine, or shoot 
them down if they attempt to earn bread for themselves and 
families on the New Orleans levee — a levee and a city that they 
built. 

The atmosphere is cloudless and clear; I will roll up time's 
curtain and take a daguerreotype of the future, and place it be- 
fore you. Ghastly specters may appear; if so, they exist within 
the glances of the sun, or in the atmosphere, or they could not 
appear within the infallible counterpart. 

The present white world is on the wane; future greatness in 
complexion will be from tawny to the hue of midnight darkness. 
Mark this and place it within your archives for coming history 
of distant centuries. Africa will be in the ascendency and dictate 
to the world. As the twig is bent the tree inclines; a glimpse of 
light is plainly in the darkness seen. Thousands of blacks will 
read this sailor's volume, and herein will learn their coming 
capacity for empire and greatness. A spirit for dominion will 
seize the entire African race throughout the world; their united 
aim will be directed to a single object which will create an irre- 
sistible power. Herein rests le mot d^enigme. They will have 
before them the white man's example and experience, his long 
accumulation of knowledge, his discovered arts and sciences to 



58 .A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

improve on. Their Black Republic will embrace one-third of the 
entire globe. They will possess philosophers, poets, and invent- 
ive genius. Every village will have its daily journal; school- 
houses and churches will dot every valley and every hill. They 
will possess their navy yards, arsenals, ordnance foundries, and 
military academies; science within their grasp will expand be- 
yond belief of our present Lilliputian generation. They will 
cook their food, burn their brick and lime, run their mills, heat 
their iron and forge it by the condensed and concentrated rays 
of the sun, and when necessity requires, they will store up the 
summer's heat that now goes to waste to give them heat when 
required, as we now store up the winter's cold in ice to refresh us 
on a sultry day. The sun's heat is inexhaustible. 

Mr. Edison says that in far-oflf ages, when all our supply of 
coal is exhausted, a new fuel will be discovered within the earth's 
volcanic distant interior, which we will tap and utilize. 

Mistaken Edison! Cast your mind's eye on yonder glowing 
sun from which in a few centuries our heat will come. No earth 
to excavate or pipes to lay from the seething volcano's store. 
An awful task to carry their heat or decocted waters to the 
farmer's kitchen door. 

At that day the great African nation will step across Gibral- 
tar's strait, and through chemical science entomb or drive Great 
Britain's garrison from its stronghold of nature's rock, and 
amidst the cry of retribution sweep with the fury of a tempest 
through Spain and Portugal, and in the name of the Great 
Jehovah plant their black flag upon the spire of every church, 
and upon the summit of every hill. This is not a sailor's idle 
yarn, but a fixed and stern reality. Africa, after conquering 
Spain and Portugal, will then subdue Arabia, Hindostan, take 
possession of Siam, Borneo, St. Helena, and all the islands and 
keys within th« South Atlantic Ocean. She will form alliances, 
offensive and defensive, with China, Japan, Hayti, and Persia; 
she will be solicited by France, England, and Germany, to form 
an alliance, but will refuse all friendly intercourse or connection 
with white nations. But she will not molest England, France, 



THE AFRICAN'S FUTURE. 

or Germanj-, as long as they behave themselves. This will be 
at a very d.stant clay; son,e seven centuries in the future- 1 ha! 
day all wh.te angels will be placed on the retired li t and b ack 

the^ttT ''"' '"'"' ""' ^'""' '■ «°^^"-'" -^^ the e wmt 



CHAPTER XVII. 

A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF MISSISSIPPI, 
FLORIDA, LOUISIANA, AND TEXAS. 

'T^ HE ocean's tide flowed and ebbed, and the sand-glass of time 
recorded years. I went on shore again. Colonel Crockett's 
great and wise address clung to my memory as hooks of steel. 
He spoke of useful knowledge, useful action, wealth, progress, 
and of our Presidents and their Cabinets. I resolved to collect 
and place upon my mind, or upon my daily diary, all the useful 
knowledge that the two could sustain ; I found that their sustain- 
ing quality was unlimited. I know the seas, their fish, their 
depths, their boundaries; now whilst on the land I desire to know 
its human angel man, and his past and present history, for this in 
part we live. Of the future but few know ; its altitude is beyond 
ordinary vision. God created the world and pronounced it fin- 
ished; man creates the future ; it is ever in process, never finished. 

I will place within this record some historical facts worthy of 
note, for the benefit of those who desire to know; those who do 
know require no instructor; they are competent to teach. I will 
but bring the facts and situation down through the distant time 
to later years; recent history rests within the memory of all, as 
published within the journals of the day. 

I desired to obtain some knowledge of the Mississippi, the 
State in which I had for a short time sojourned. I ascertained 
that the first settlement made within the State was made by a 
colony of French who settled at Natchez in 171 5, and they be- 
came masters of the soil by massacring over three-fourths of the 
Natchez Indians, who were previously in possession, driving off 
the remnant who joined the Chickasaws and Choctaws. At 
Natchez was located the State's first capital. The soil of Miss- 

60 



BRIEF SKETCH OF EARLY HISTORY. 6i 

issippi, in fertility, is equal to any State in the Union. It has 
an area of 47,157 square miles, making 30,180,480 acres; being 
larger than Pennsylvania, which contains 46,000 square miles, 
or 29,440,000 acres of land. Mississippi was admitted to the 
Union as a State in 1817, and was the twentieth State. Thomas 
H. Williams and Walter Leak were her first United States Sena- 
tors. The census taken in 1810 gave her a population of 40,- 
354; the census in 1830, the year previous to my exploration and 
canebrake-couch experience, when domiciles as I reported were 
widely separated, the population was 136,622; this was her fourth 
census, the first having been taken in 1800, and numbered 8850. 
For many years the slaves outnumbered the whites. When 
President Lincoln emancipated the slaves, Mississippi owned 
438,721 of them. 

Having visited and taken an interest in Florida at an early 
period, I must publish that St. Augustine is one of the oldest 
towns in the United States. A colony of French settled there in 
1564. Spain gained possession of Florida in 1763. The United 
States contracted for it in 1819, but did not get full possession 
until 182 1. The State has an area of 59,269 square miles, equal 
to 37,932,160 acres. Florida was admitted to the Union in 1845, 
and made the twenty-seventh State. David L. Yulee and J. D. 
Westcott were the first United States Senators. They took their 
seats in that body in 1845. Florida's population in 1840 was but 
54,477, which exhibits the fact that they did not lack for elbow 
room when they made war on the Seminoles in 1835, to drive 
them from their homes. The populous State of New York has 
an area of but 47,000 square miles, equal to 30,080,000 acres, 
which is 7,852,160 acres less than Florida. The slaves of Florida 
numbered 61,890 on emancipation dav. 

I must make mention of Louisiana State, which will ever ad- 
here to my memory. In 1718 a large French colony settled at 
New Orleans; and there had been a few settlers and explorers 
previous to that day. Spain obtained possession of a portion; 
France again got possession of Louisiana, and sold the vast terri- 
tory through Napoleon I. to the United States in 1803, for the 



62 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

sum of $15,000,000. The State has an area of 46,450 square 
miles, making 29,728,000 acres. Louisiana was admitted into the 
Union in 1812. James Brown and Thomas Posey were her first 
United States Senators. 

John SHdell, who gave Uncle Sam much trouble for launching 
him and Mr. Mason from of¥ an English vessel when on a mis- 
sion to England in behalf of the Confederacy, was a Louisiana 
Senator from 1853 to 1S61. Judah P. Benjamin, a member of 
Jefferson DaAas' Cabinet, was also a member of the United 
States Senate, representing Louisiana from 1853 up to 1861. He 
possessed an interesting history, but this is too late a day to place 
it on record; to do so would not be generous, yet a portion I will 
mention, that the parents had eaten sour grapes, and set their 
children's teeth on edge. Judah was an illegitimate child, born 
on the isle of Martinique. His mother was a Jewess of good 
parentage, and the belle of the isle; his father was an Englishman, 
possessing wealth and a title. When he was approaching man- 
hood his father shipped him to an upper college at Charleston, 
S. C, to be educated. When I first sighted him he did not look 
like a young man that would ever be United States Senator. I 
now doubt if he was ever a citizen of America, yet he and others 
cost Uncle Sam much blood, hardship, and treasure. Louisi- 
ana's slaves numbered 333,403 on emancipation day. 

I must take from my diary a portion of the eventful history of 
Texas, for, without a doubt, Texas possesses the most eventful 
and interesting history of any State within the union of States. 
To write that history as it passed through the sand-glass of time, 
from its first white-man invasion in 1685 down to the recollection 
of the present generation, would require a large volume, and 
every page of that volume would be tinted with human blood and 
tragedy beyond belief. The history of Texas has never been 
written; several abortive attempts have been made in that direc- 
tion. Sailor I may be tempted to pass that way and knock the 
moss of time from oflf my memory, overhaul the dusty and time- 
worn archives within Texas and Mexico, and investigate my 
diary and increase the abortive number before I bid the world 



BRIEF SKETCH OF EARLY HISTORY. 6^ 

good-night. I will now say that after Mexico achieved her inde- 
pendence in 1822, Texas remained one of her provinces until 
she revolted in 1835, and obtained her independence in 1836, 
through armed volunteers from the United States, who passed 
through incredible hardships and suffering. At the time of the 
revolt the entire population of Texas numbered less than 50,- 
000; she remained an independent republic till 1845, and was 
known throughout the w^orld as the Lone Star Republic. At 
that date she became a Territory of the United States, and in 
1846 she was admitted into the union of States, as the twenty- 
ninth State. Thomas F. Rusk and Samuel Houston were her 
first United States Senators. The extent of her territory ex- 
ceeds that of the German empire, and America's single Nevada 
is larger than France's republic. Texas' territory exceeds in ex- 
tent that of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware. 
Maryland, and Ohio, all combined. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

OUR EARLY PRESIDENTS AND THEIR CABINETS. 

/^OLONEL CROCKETT, in his impressive address in Miss- 
^-^ issippi, spoke of our early Presidents and their Cabinets. I 
shall place some of them with dates of official action, and other 
matter that may interest some readers, on this record. 

FIRST ADMINISTRATION, FROM 1 789 TO 1 797 EIGHT YEARS. 

George Washington of Virginia, President. 
John Adams of Massachusetts, Vice President. 

Cabinet. 

Thomas Jefiferson of Virginia, Secretary of State. 
Edmund Randolph of Virginia, Secretary of State. 
Timothy Pickering, Massachusetts, Secretary of State. 
Alexander Hamilton, New York, Secretary of Treasury. 
Oliver Wolcott, Connecticut, Secretary of Treasury. 
Thomas Pickering of Massachusetts, Secretary of War. 
James McHenry of Maryland, Secretary of War. 
Henry Knox of Massachusetts, Secretary of War. 

SECOND ADMINISTRATION, 1 797 TO 180I FOUR YEARS. 

John Adams, Massachusetts, President. 
Thomas Jefferson, Virginia, Vice President. 

Cabinet. 

Timothy Pickering, Massachusetts, Secretary of State. 
John Marshall, Virginia, Secretary of State. 
Oliver Wolcott, Connecticut, Secretary of the Treasury. 
Samuel Dexter, Massachusetts, Secretary of the Treasury. 

64 



OUR EARLY PRESIDENTS AND THEIR CABINETS. 65 

James McHenry of Maryland, Secretary of War. 
Roger Griswold of Massachusetts, Secretary of War. 
George Cabot of Massachusetts, Secretary of the Navy. 
Benjamin Stoddard of Maryland, Secretary of the Navy. 

THIRD ADMINISTRATION, FROM 180I TO 1809 EIGHT YEARS. 

Thomas Jefferson, Virginia, President. 
Aaron Burr of New York, Vice President. 
George Clinton of New York, Vice President. 

Cabinet. 

James Madison of Virginia, Secretary of State. 
Samuel Dexter, Massachusetts, Secretary of the Treasury. 
Albert Gallatin of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Treasury. 
Henry Dearborn of Massachusetts, Secretary of War. 
Benjamin Stoddard of Maryland, Secretary of the Navy. 
Robert Smith of Maryland, Secretary of the Navy. 

FOURTH ADMINISTRATION, FROM 1809 TO 1817 EIGHT YEARS. 

James Madison, Virginia, President. 

George Clinton of New York, Vice President. 

Cabinet. 

Robert Smith of Maryland, Secretary of State. 
James Monroe of Virginia, Secretary of State. 
Albert Gallatin of Pennsylvania, Secretary of Treasury. 
George W. Campbell of Tennessee, Secretary of Treasury. 
William Eustis, Massachusetts, Secretary of War. 
John Armstrong of New York, Secretary of War. 
James Monroe of Virginia, Secretary of War. 
William H. Crawford of Georgia, Secretary of War. 
Paul Hamilton of South Carolina, Secretary of the Navy. 
William Jones of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Navy. 
Benjamin Crowninshield of Massachusetts, Secretary of the 
Navy. 



66 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

FIFTH ADMINISTRATION, FROM 1817 TO 1825 EIGHT YEARS. 

James Monroe of Virginia, President, 

Daniel D. Tompkins of New York, Vice President. 

Cabinet. 

John Q. Adams of Massachusetts, Secretary of State. 
WilHam H. Crawford, Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury. 
Isaac Shelby of Kentucky, Secretary of War. 
John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, Secretary of War. 
B. Crowninshield of Massachusetts, Secretary of War. 
Smith Thompson of New York, Secretary of War. 
Samuel L. Southard of New Jersey, Secretary of War. 

SIXTH ADMINISTRATION, 1825 TO 1829 — FOUR YEARS. 

John Q. Adams of Massachusetts, President. 
John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, Vice President. 

Cabinet. 

Henry Clay of Kentucky, Secretary of State. 

Richard Rush of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Treasury. 

James Barbour of Virginia, Secretary of War. 

Samuel L. Southard of New Jersey, Secretary of the Navy. 

SEVENTH ADMINISTRATION, 1829 TO 1837 EIGHT YEARS. 

Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, President. 
John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, Vice President. 
Martin Van Buren of New York, Vice President during sec- 
ond term. 

Cabinet. 

Martin Van Buren of New York, Secretary of State. 

Edward Livingston of Louisiana, Secretary of State. 

Louis McLane of Delaware, Secretary of State. 

John Forsyth of Georgia, Secretary of State. 

Samuel D. Ingham, Pennsylvania, Secretary of Treasury. 



OUR EARLY PRESIDENTS AND THEIR CABINETS. 67 

Roger B. Taney of Maryland, Secretary of Treasury. 
John H. Eaton of Tennessee, Secretary of War. 
Lewis Cass of Michigan, Secretary of War. 
Benjamin F. Butler of New York, Secretary of War. 
John Branch, North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy. 
Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire, Secretary of the Navy. 
Mahlon Dickerson of New Jersey, Secretary of the Navy. 
Now comes the Postmaster General as a member of the 
Cabinet. 

John McLane of Ohio, Postmaster General. 
Amos Kendall of Kentucky, Postmaster General. 

EIGHTH ADMINISTRATION, 1837 TO 184I FOUR YEARS. 

Martin Van Buren of New York, President. 
Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, Vice President. 

Cabinet. 

John Forsyth of Georgia, Secretary of State. 

Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire, Secretary of Treasury. 

Joel R. Poinsett of South Carolina, Secretary of War. 

Mahlon Dickerson of New Jersey, Secretary of the Navy. 

Amos Kendall of Kentucky, Postmaster General. 

John M. Niles of Connecticut, Postmaster General. 



NINTH ADMINISTRATION, MARCH 4, 184I, TO APRIL 4, 184I. 

William Henry Harrison of Ohio, President. 
John Tyler of Virginia, Vice President. 

Cabinet. 

Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, Secretary of State. 
Thomas Ewing of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury. 
John Bell of Tennessee, Secretary of War. 
George E. Badger, North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy. 
Gideon Granger of New York, Postmaster General. 



68 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

TENTH ADMINISTRATION, APRIL 6, I84I, TO MARCH 4, 1845. 

John Tyler, Acting President through death of President 
Harrison. 

Cabinet. 

Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, Secretary of the State. 
Abel Upshur of Virginia, Secretary of the State. 
John C. Calhoun, South Carolina, Secretary of the State. 
Thomas Evving of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury. 
Walter Forward of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Treasury. 
/ John Spencer of New York, Secretary of the Treasury. 
George M. Bibb of Kentucky, Secretary of the Treasury. 
John Bell of Tennessee, Secretary of War. 
John C. Spencer of New York, Secretary of War. 
James M. Porter of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War. 
William Wilkins of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War. 
George E. Badger of North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy. 
Abel P. Upshur of Virginia, Secretary of the Navy. 
David Henshaw, Massachusetts, Secretary of the Navy. 
John Y. Mason of Virginia, Secretary of the Navy. 
G. W. Gilmer of Virginia, Secretary of the Navy. 
Francis G. Granger of New York, Postmaster General. 
Charles A. Wicklifife of Kentucky, Postmaster General. 

ELEVENTH ADMINISTRATION, FROM 1845 TO 1849 FOUR YEARS. 

James K. Polk of Tennessee, President. 

George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania, Vice President. 

Cabinet. 

James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, Secretary of State. 
Robert J, Walker of Mississippi, Secretary of the Treasury. 
William L. Marcy of New York, Secretary of War. 
George Bancroft of Massachusetts, Secretary of the Navy. 
John Y. Mason of Virginia, Secretary of the Navy. 
Cave Johnson of Tennessee, Postmaster General. 



OUR EARLY PRESIDENTS AND THEIR CABINETS. 69 

Nathan Clifford of Maryland, Attorney General. 
Isaac Toucey of Connecticut, Attorney General. 

TWELFTH ADMINISTRATION, MARCH 4, 1849, TO JULY ID, 185O. 

Zachary Taylor of Louisiana, President. 
Millard Fillmore of New York, Vice President. 

Cabinet. 

John M. Clayton of Delaware, Secretary of State. 

George W. Crawford of Georgia, Secretary of War. 

William M. Meredith of Pennsylvania, Secretary of Treasury. 

Thomas Ewing of Ohio, Secretary of the Interior. 

William B. Preston of Virginia, Secretary of the Navy. 

Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, Attorney General. 

Jacob Collamer of Vermont, Postmaster General. 

THIRTEENTH ADMINISTRATION, FROM JULY lO, 185O, 

TO MARCH 4, 1853. 

Millard Fillmore, Acting President through the death of 
General lay lor. 

Cabinet. 

Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, Secretary of State. 
Thomas Corwin of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury. 
William A. Graham of North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy. 
Charles M. Conrad of Louisiana, Secretary of War. 
Alexander H. H. Stuart of Virginia, Secretary of the Interior. 
Nathan K. Hall of New York, Postmaster General. 
John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, Attorney General. 

FOURTEENTH ADMINISTRATION, MARCH, 1853, TO MARCH, 1857. 

Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, President. 

The first administration that we did not inaugurate any Vice 
President. President Pierce was the only President to ever set 
sail in the National ship without a mate, and passed through his 



70 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

four years' voyage alone. William R. King of Alabama, who 
was elected Vice President, died before he entered into ofhce. 

Cabinet. 
William L. Marcy of New York, Secretary of State. 
James Guthrie of Kentucky, Secretary of the Treasury. 
JefYerson Davis of Mississippi, Secretary of War. 
John C. Dobbin of North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy. 
Robert McClelland of Michigan, Secretary of the Interior. 
James Campbell of Pennsylvania, Postmaster General. 
Caleb Gushing of Massachusetts, Attorney General. 

FIFTEENTH ADMINISTRATION, MARCH, 1857, TO MARCH, 1861. 

James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, President. 

John C. Breckinridge of Tennessee, Vice President. 

Cabinet. 
Lewis Cass of Michigan, Secretary of State. 
Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania, Secretary of State. 
Howell Cobb of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury. 
John A. Dix of New Y^ork, Secretary of the Treasury. 
John B. Floyd of Virginia, Secretary of War. 
Isaac Toucey of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy. 
Aaron V. Brown of Tennessee, Postmaster General. 
Joseph Holt of Kentucky, Postmaster General. 
Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania, Attorney General. 
Edwin M. Stanton of Pennsylvania, Attorney General. 

SIXTEENTH ADMINISTRATION, FROM MARCH 4, 1861, TO APRIL 
14, 1865 FOUR YEARS, ONE MONTH, AND TEN DAYS. 

Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, President. 

Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, and Andrew Johnson of Tennes- 
see, Vice Presidents. 

Cabinet. 
. William H. Seward of New York, Secretary of State. 

Salmon P. Chase, Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury. 



OUR EARLY PRESIDENTS AND THEIR CABINETS. 71 

Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War. 
Edwin M. Stanton of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War. 
John P. Usher of Indiana, Secretary of the Interior. 
Gideon Welles of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy. 
Montgomery Blair of Maryland, Postmaster General. 
William Dennison of Ohio, Postmaster General. 
Edward Bates of Missouri, Attorney General. 
James Speed of Kentucky, Attorney General. 

SEVENTEENTH ADMINISTRATION, APRIL 1 5, 1865, TO MARCH 

4, 1869. 
Andrew Johnson, acting as President. 

Cabinet. 

William H. Seward of New York, Secretary of State. 
Hugh McCulloch of Indiana, Secretary of the Treasury. 
Edwin M. Stanton of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War. 
Ulysses S. Grant of Illinois, Secretary of War. 
Gideon Welles of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy. 
James Harlan of Iowa, Secretary of the Interior. 
Orville H. Browning of Illinois, Secretary of the Interior. 
James Speed of Kentucky, Attorney General. 
Henry Stanbery of Ohio, Attorney General. 
William M. Evarts of New York, Attorney General. 
William Dennison of Ohio, Postmaster General. 
Alexander W. Randall of Wisconsin, Postmaster General. 

My record exhibits the fact that a larger number of changes 
took place in President Tyler's Cabinet during his short adminis- 
tration of less than four years than ever took place in any other 
Cabinet and administration from Washington down, even during 
an administration of eight years. 

Since. John Q. Adams was President, the Postmaster General, 
Attorney General, Secretary of the Interior, and Commissioner 
of Agriculture have been added to my ancient list of Cabinet 



72 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

officers. The latter office was a tub thrown to the Granger 
Whale. I have done the like at sea. *- 

I entered on my diary, over half a century now past and 
gone, these singular coincidences: John Adams was born in 
1735, and retired in 1801 ; Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743, 
and retired in 1809; James Madison was born in 1751 and re- 
tired 181 7; James Monroe was born in 1759, and retired in 1825; 
John Quincy Adams was born 1767, and retired in 1829. The 
above shows that Jefferson was born eight years after his prede- 
cessor; Madison, eight years after his predecessor; Monroe, eight 
years after his predecessor; and John Q. Adams, eight years after 
his predecessor, Monroe; and yet more remarkable, Monroe was 
just sixty-six years of age when he retired; Jefferson was sixty- 
six when he retired; Madison was sixty-six when he retired; Mon- 
roe was sixty-six when he retired, and had John Q. Adams 
been re-elected as he should have been, at the end of his second 
administration he would have been sixty-six. Adams, Jeffer- 
son, and Monroe died on the Fourth of July. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THE SPEAKERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND THE 
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR. 

J HERE present from my diary the early Speakers of the House 
of Representatives, with their home States. This is a posi- 
tion of great importance, with power for good or for bad. I will 
commence at the incipiency of that office, and trace it down to 
years within the memory of all, as well known through the daily 
journals. 



Frederick A. Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, 

Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut, 

Frederick A. Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, 

Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, 

Theodore Sedgwick, Massachusetts, 

Nathaniel Mason, North Carolina, 

Joseph B. Varnum, Massachusetts, 

Henry Clay, Kentucky, 

Langdon Cheves, South Carolina, 

Henry Clay, Kentucky, . 

John W. Taylor, New York, . 

Philip P. Barbour, Virginia, . 

Henry Clay, Kentucky, . 

John W. Taylor, New York, . 

Andrew Stevenson, Virginia, . 

John Bell, Tennessee, 

James K. Polk, Tennessee, 

Robert M. T. Hunter, Virginia, 

John White, Kentucky, . 

John W. Jones, Virginia, . 

73 



1789 tc 


) I79I 


I79I " 


1793. 


1793 " 


1797- 


1797 - 


1798. 


1798 '' 


1801. 


I80I " 


1807. 


1807 " 


1811. 


I8II " 


1814. 


I8I4 " 


1815. 


I8I5 '' 


1820. 


1820 " 


1821. 


I82I " 


1823. 


1823 '^ 


1825. 


1825 - 


1827. 


1827 '' 


1835. 


1835 '' 


1837. 


1837 '^ 


1839. 


1839 '' 


1841. 


I84I '' 


1843- 


1843 " 


1845- 



74 



A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 



John W. Davis, Indiana, . 

Robert C. Winthrop, Massachusetts, 

Howell Cobb, Georgia, 

Linn Boyd, Kentucky, 

Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, 

James L. Orr, South Carolina, 

William Pennington, New Jersey, 

Galusha A. Grow, Pennsylvania, 



1845 to 


1847. 


1847 " 


1849. 


1849 " 


I85I. 


1851 '• 


1856. 


. 


1795- 


1858 " 


1859. 


1859 " 


1861. 


I86I " 


1863. 



And I here record the early Secretaries of State, and give their 
homes: 



Thomas Jeflferson of Virginia, 
Edmund Randolph of Virginia, . 
Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, 
John Marshall of Virginia, . 
James Madison of Virginia, . 
Robert Smith of Maryland, . 
James Monroe of Virginia, 
John Q. Adams of Massachusetts, 
Henry Cl*y of Kentucky, 
Martin Van Buren of New York, 
Edward Livingston of Louisiana, 
Louis McLane of Delaware, 
John Forsyth of Georgia, 
Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, 
H. S. Legare of South Carolina, 
A. P. Upshur of Virginia, 
John Nelson of Maryland, 
John C. Calhoun, South Carolina, 
James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, 
John M. Clayton of Delaware, 
Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, 
Edward Everett of Massachusetts, 
William L. Marcy of New York, 
Lewis Cass of Michigan, 



1789. 
1794. 
1795. 
1800. 
1801. 
1809. 
1811. 
1817. 
1825. 
1829. 
1831. 

1833. 
1834. 
1841. 

1843. 
1843. 
1844. 

1844. 

1845. 
1849. 

1850. 

1851. 

1853. 
1857. 



SPEAKERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 75 



Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania, 
William H. Seward of New York, 
Elihii B. Washburn of Illinois, 



i860. 
1861. 
1869. 



Department of the Interior. 

I here enter the names of those who filled this new office at 
its early day: 



Thomas H. Ewing of Ohio, . 

T. M. T. McKernon of Pennsylvania, 

Alexander H. 11. Stuart of Virginia, 

Robert McClelland of Michigan, 

Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, . 

Caleb B. Smith of Indiana, 

John P. Usher of Indiana, 

James Harlan of Iowa, 

Of recent years all well known. 



1849. 
1850. 
1850. 

1853. 

1859. 
1 861. 

1863. 

1865. 



CHAPTER XX. 

Mohammed's influence and power. 

pOLONEL CROCKETT at Benton, Miss., had also spoken 
of the never-perishing Mohammed, who would outlive kings 
and emperors. L desired to trace his acts and power, and I dis- 
covered that if ever mortal man possessed might and power over 
man- and woman-kind, then Mohammed possessed that might 
and power. He took within his mighty iron grasp millions of 
demoralized sensualists, men and women, and as within a mo- 
ment caused millions to abandon their depravity and their multi- 
plicity of gods, and to bow down upon their bended knees be- 
fore the one God Allah. Then Bacchus and depravity became 
unknown within Mohammed's realm, and the Crescent floated in 
a pure and unadulterated atmosphere. 

Then the followers of the Cross, who took no note nor raised a 
sword or hand whilst corruption reigned, nor considered it their 
duty to make an armed raid upon the coming Crescent's home to 
plant the Cross, but thereafter, in the year 1095, the First Cru- 
sade took place to blot the Crescent from off the earth ; the Sec- 
ond Crusade was in 1147; the Third Crusade in 1189; the Fourth 
Crusade in 1203: the Fifth Crusade in 1217: the Sixth Crusade in 
1229; the Seventh Crusade in 1248. The latter Crusade took 
place under Louis IX. of France, the only crowned head within 
my time of memory's history to lead the van to plant the Cross in 
heathen land. That day, June 25, 1248, King Louis placed on 
parade his well-drilled, well-armed, and victorious veterans from 
off England's bloody fields of war; those troops numbering forty- 
three thousand men. And amidst the cry of his people, On- 
ward march, victory waits your coming within the Holy Land, 
and amidst the huzzas of many thousands, the vast ignorant army 

76 



MOHAMMED'S INFLUENCE AND POWER. 77 

departed, to find that Mohammed's spirit Hved. King Louis, 
while on his supposed triumphant march to victory and to fame 
immortal, by entering Palestine through heathen blood, was in- 
tercepted by the Mohammedans who, amidst the cry of Mo- 
hammed and Allah God, rushed with the fury of a Kansas cyclone 
through the Christians' compact ranks, and with glittering scimi- 
ters mowed down the Christian dogs (so called) as does the 
reaper mow down the field of wheat; leaving their bodies upon 
the cold earth as food for vultures and for wolves. Over 
thirty-four thousand were sent to their account, and King Louis 
was taken prisoner; the first impulse was to execute him, but the 
second thought was that a ransom of one hundred thousand 
marks would be of more utility to the heathen exchequer than his 
dead body. 

This heathen victory was considered by the then world as an 
extraordinary achievement at arms, as the Mohammedans were 
looked upon as ignorant heathen, and King Louis was a soldier 
of renown, having defeated Henry IIL of England in three hard- 
fought battles. The few, very few who escaped death and re- 
turned to his empire and his aged Mother Regent and their 
homes, reported that they were astonished and amazed to find 
the Mohammedans their superiors in literature and the arts and 
sciences, as well as in war. In 1270 King Louis attempted his 
Second Crusade with a large army; he reached Tunis and quar- 
tered his troops on the margin of the shallow and unhealthy Lake 
Tunis, where pestilence and famine carried ofif the King and over 
three-fourths of his vast army. 

In the year 1297 King Louis was canonized a saint by Pope 
Boniface VIII. Our Missouri city, St. Louis, was named in his 
honor by a French colony over a century now past. Since those 
days of religious strife and flowing blood, I have seen the Cres- 
cent and the Cross wave side by side, and not a frown of jealousy 
to mar the brows of their votaries. 



CHAPTER XXL 

THE INDIAN TRIBES OF NORTH AMERICA. 

T HAVE frequently been both anntsed and astonished at the 
crude ideas and the lack of all idea of even intelligent business 
men respecting the existence and the extent of the Indians that 
peopled North America, and were with us but yesterday. I must 
here place on record for the distant future the most powerful and 
important tribes, leaving out many of the smaller or weaker 
tribes. I shall commence at the great Northern Lakes and carry 
my momentous history on down to the Atlantic, and move from 
thence to the Father of Waters, the great Mississippi, and con- 
tinue the history on westward to the far-distant Pacific, naming 
the Indian nations who once were the lords of this, the now called 
New World, yet a very old world, and to give a few sketches of 
past tragedies, in which this, a mysterious and almost unknown 
people, took a leading part, and most of whom are now blotted 
from ofif the earth. 

The Indian knows no boundary-line; has no regard for the 
pale-face's landmarks. Upon the southern line of the British 
dominion, and the northern line of Uncle Sam's domain, resided 
the Hurons, Mohicannies, Chippeways, Onondagas, Oneidas, 
Cayugas, Narragansetts, Pokanokets, Pawtuckets, Ottawas, 
Senecas, Menimcnces, Pequods, Sacs and Foxes, Mohawks, 
Delawares, Winnebagoes, Lenno-lenapes, Powhatans, Abenakis, 
Pottawatomies, Iroquois, Miamis, Shawnees, Kickapoos, Tusca- 
roras, Meaumies, Kaskaskias, Manahoacks, Allegenies, Chero- 
kees, Catawbas, Wyandots, Chickasaws, Natches, Choctaws, 
Yemasees, Mobilians, Creeks, Shawanees, Seminoles, Diggers, 
Missourias, Otoes, lowas, Kansas, Sioux, Yanktons, Cheyennes, 
Blackfeet, Cayuses, Pimos, Mraiaopas, Utahs, Utes, Umatillas, 

78 



THE INDIAN TRIBES OF NORTH AMERICA. 79 

Ponchas, Ogalallas, Chrynns, Mandans, Nez Perces, Gros 
Ventres, Modocs, Mountain Crows, Sans Arc, Minne-Con-Jous, 
River Crows, Wichitas, Comanches, Kiowas, Quapaws, Uncom- 
pahare, Shoshones, Arapahoes, Apaches. Here I name eighty- 
one tribes or nations, and I pass twenty-one unnamed, and 
more than one of them possessing numbers and courage to be 
able to meet the regular troops of this Union in the open field 
since my day. Where are they now? Yes, where are they? 
Three-fourths of the eighty-one nations have been blotted from 
ofif the earth, sent to their account without a white man's tear. 
And where are King Philip's and Osceola's braves? Of them 
but a small remnant now remains. Most of the remainder of 
this once numerous and powerful people are now coraled within 
the Indian reservations of the trans-Mississippi, who as a people, 
consist chiefly of the Apaches, Mescaleros, Creeks, Maricopas, 
Choctaws, Chickasaws, Kiowas, Comanches, Wichitas, Chey- 
ennes, Arapahoes, Cherokees, Poncas, Otoes, lowas, Pottawat- 
omies, Kickapoos, Cheeholees, Pawnees, Osages, Sacs and 
Foxes, Kansas, Ottawas, Chippeways, Yanktons, Winnebagoes, 
Sioux, River Crows, Mountain Crows, Black Feet, Gros 
Ventres, Shoshones, Uncompahger, Uintahs, Navajoes, Moquis, 
Hualpats, Flatheads, and a small number of the once powerful, 
and most intelligent Indians of my day, the Seminoles of Florida, 
who have now dwindled down to a small band of slaves, in mind 
and soul, as now corraled upon a bleak Western waste ; no sunny 
south, no hallowed tomb, but only a shallow grave upon a snow- 
drift plain, for the descendants of the noble and the brave, a 
miserable remnant of a once great and intelligent people, far 
superior to over one-fifth of America's white voting races — the 
highly favored who claim office and command their superiors, 
and who have named some of America's Presidents, and 
do dictate to cringing sycophants; yet their ignorance rates 
far below zero, most of whom, as is well known, belong to the 
foreign element, and many of this class through combination, and 
frequently fraud, secure office to the exclusion of competent per- 
sons, as school directors, aldermen, and officials of high stations. 



8o A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

I do not claim to have made a new discovery in this report, for 
the fact is well known to thousands, who can name those in- 
competent persons by the hundreds, within and without the 
towns and the cities of this republic. 

The Sioux were the most warlike of the trans-Mississippi 
tribes. The Mountain Crows were the only nation that dared to 
put on war-paint and step upon their trails, or attempt to filch 
their game. It was a band of the Sioux under Sitting Bull who 
defeated General George A. Custer and his well-advised, well- 
drilled and equipped cavalry in June, 1876, not leaving a single 
man to report to the press the history of the slaughter ; and in the 
same engagement Major Marcus A. Reno of the left wing, with 
six companies of cavalry, to retreat within thirty minutes from the 
onset. On the second day the Sioux withdrew to the distant 
timber, not a single gun being fired within the wake of the de- 
parting foe, for at that juncture Major Reno and his men, with 
empty stomachs and parched tongues, stood trembling within 
their hastily excavated pits, and General Custer and his entire 
army lay naked on the battlefield, cold in death. When the 
Sioux were gone Major Reno and his forces buried their dead, 
and reconnoitered General Custer's ghastly battlefield upon the 
right; and the only living, moving life in sight was a single 
cavalry horse branded U. S. This surprising and widely dis- 
seminated victory yielded the Sioux a large number of officers' 
and soldiers' uniforms, blankets, arms by the hundreds, a large 
supply of ammunition, some brandy, and many horses. The 
Sioux before their enslavement were without a doubt the best 
horsemen in the world ; they have been known during an engage- 
ment to shoot a white cavalry soldier and spring into his saddle, 
permitting their jaded horses to go at large; others during battle 
have been known to seize a loose horse, lead him into battle with 
one hand, whilst he used his other hand to control his own horse 
and fire his gun with unerring aim. It was this superiority that 
gave the poorly equipped and half-starved savages this widely 
noted victory. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE SEMINOLES' NAPOLEON, OSCEOLA. 

T N 1832 the white planters of Florida coveted the Seminoles' 
arable lands, and the life of an Indian per acre they considered 
a small cost. The Indians claimed that by the pale-face count of 
years they had owned and resided upon those lands for many, 
a great many hundreds of years, running up into the thou- 
sands. They had seen the vast, towering, spreading cottonwood 
trees from a tiny, floating blossom spring, and the giant oak from 
an acorn grow, and they had seen sand and coral islands emerge 
from where the ocean waved, for those trees to grow upon. The 
whites, notwithstanding this plea, did through indirect means 
take possession of the homes and lands of many, and finally 
urged this Government in every form and shape to dispossess 
them of their entire possessions and banish them from the State. 
The Seminoles possessed no pen, no ink, no type, no press, to 
talk to the far-distant world of his wrongs and the crafty white 
man's robbery; the result is that history and the gods of truth and 
justice have been also greatly wronged by cormorants in human 
form, but mark! mark! not forever wronged. Retribution ever 
appears promptly on time, scourges of contagion and blighting 
frosts and tempests will teach a lesson of the past. A contract 
was made with a few that ninety-nine within each one hundred 
of the Seminole nation repudiated and denounced as deceptive 
and a fraud. One of the old but wise and great chiefs, Mona- 
wahatchie, spoke of the contract as a pure white scroll marked 
with black water placed upon it with a buzzard's quill, to deceive 
and trap the red man, and I can say he truly spoke, and that re- 
ports transmitted to the War Department at Washington were 
unfounded, upon which reports General Clinch, with his well-fed 

81 



82 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

and well-armed regulars, was ordered to camp within the Semi- 
nole domain, to teach them a lesson in civilization. Chief 
Osceola signed the Wile Thompson treaty whilst in durance, and 
in irons placed upon him by General Wile Thompson. This 
act was General Thompson's passport to his tomb, minus his 
i^calp. Generals Clinch and Thompson were soon followed onto 
the battlefield by Generals Scott. Worth, Smith, Jessup, Gains, 
and Zachary Taylor, in a later year President of the United 
States. Eight great generals and Major Dade, whose army, with 
the major, was slaughtered by Osceola. Those renowned generals 
were long held at bay by a savage, yet their peer in command. 
He was a believer in the tactics of Napoleon L, within whose 
warfare he had been schooled, and, as Napoleon, did not beat a 
drum or sound a trumpet on his march or camp nearby, and re- 
quest his foe to form in line, but took the offensive regardless of 
position or numbers, to obtain a victory. 

It was the first musket fired in the Seminoles' war that caused 
the flowing blood and dying groans of thousands, and long and 
costly contest for supremacy. Had that one single musket 
charge of death which entered the body of the centurion chief, 
Monawahatchie (Big Ocean W^ave), who with two followers was 
marching on a mission of peace, been retained within its narrow 
chamber, even then negotiation might have supplanted cruel 
war, instituted to drive the red man Seminole from his dead, his 
gods, and home, to plant the curse of slavery upon the hallowed 
ruins; the torch was applied to their wigwams, the plowshare run 
through their sacred mounds, and cotton was planted upon the 
graves of their ancestors. As it was, Big Ocean Wave, whilst 
lying beneath a Florida's noonday scorching sun in front of the 
pompous General Clinch's military tent, in the last throes of 
death, wafted a war-whoop for justice and revenge. A shrill 
echo was returned through the moss-covered forest trees and 
everglades, to strike the white man's ear. Justice and revenge! 
Then the morrow's early dawn placed Osceola (Talking Bird), 
a kindred brave, upon the war-path to let loose the dogs of war. 
Heaven smiled upon the act, and caused consternation to envelop 



THE SEMINOLES' NAPOLEON, OSCEOLA. S^ 

the renowned Generals Clinch and Scott, and all the world to 
stand aghast whilst Osceola swept vast and well-drilled armies 
from off the earth. Finally, whilst under the supposed protec- 
tion of a white flag within the American camp, General Jessup, 
who feared him, seized him and put him in irons, and placed him 
within a prison; and Osceola, the red man's Napoleon, found his 
St. Helena within the walls of Fort Moultrie, where he died a 
prisoner: and I, the only witness of those scenes and days of 
1833 who now stalks the earth to pen this tragical history. 
Osceola was not a medicine man, but a Jove, to threaten and 
command. And many now, with quivering lip and pallid cheek, 
ask why curling cyclones with destructive fury sweep the earth. 
Osceola hurls them from the sky. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE EXILED SEMINOLES. 

npHE year 1835 arrived, and the war between the Seminole 
Nation and, the United States, which continued to rage with 
alternating results up to that date, when the Seminoles, who had 
long been on the war-path, and who had not cultivated their 
fields, were driven to starvation within the everglades, and their 
military stores, which they had heretofore obtained through con- 
quest, had been exhausted, and their only alternative was to rush 
with their spears and bows and arrows into battle, and sell their 
lives at the best price possible, or lay down and die within the 
everglades, or surrender to the pale-face and be banished forever 
from their homes. 

The three modes of solution were about evenly divided and 
adopted; one-third faced the muskets' and the cannons' balls, or 
rushed to meet the bayonet's charge; one-third lay down within 
the everglades and died, and one-third surrendered. A large 
body of this conquered people — men, women, and children — were 
shipped to New Orleans, on their route to their westward Indian 
reservation. The women and children outnumbered the men, 
as the men had been slain in battle. They were for a length of 
time detained in camp at New Orleans, and their camp was 
located at the city terminus of the new basin of the Cameron 
canal, guarded and supervised by a vast array of military form 
and pomp; guards and supernumeraries were ever on the qui 
vivc. There was no cause for fear of the unarmed, broken- 
hearted, dejected wild men, who were no longer the once brave 
Seminoles of Florida. 

This protracted war with a mere handful of wild men created 
an astonishing large indebtedness, to the United States. Yes^ 

84 



THE EXILED SEMINOLES. 85 

only wild men, yet the most sacrificing and bravest that the 
great Jehovah had ever created and implanted in their composi- 
tion Nature's just and first law, the protection of self against 
ruthless despotism and rapacious greed. 

I said this Seminole war created a large indebtedness to the 
United States. The rations for each captured brave and the 
transportation of each squaw and her papoose cost a sum suffi- 
cient for the ransom of an emperor, and the cost of military 
stores almost equaled those of our war of 18 12 with Great Britain. 

The contrast between the citizens of Florida and those of New 
Orleans was self-evident, and so remarkably different that I at 
the time noted it on my diary. The former had for years used 
every endeavor to get the Seminoles placed at a distance from 
them, even to armed invasion of their homes, whilst the citizens 
of New Orleans, especially the butchers, the bakers, the im- 
porters, and dealers in provisions greatly desired them to long 
remain in their midst, and with great sorrow saw them depart. 

To show the world that relentless and cruel fate in 1895, 
hounding the red man's trail, I copy verbatim from a report of 
General Coppinger, as published this day, August 5, 1895, in the 
Chicago " Daily Tribune," a leading journal of that city, which 
says : 

** ALL IS SERENE AT JACKSON's HOLE NO REASON TO ANTICI- 
PATE TROUBLE AT ANY POINT FROM THE INDIANS. 

" Jackson's Hole, Wyo., August 2 (via Market Lake, Idaho, 
August 3) — (Special). — General Coppinger sent a message by 
General Stitzer to the Governor of Wyoming, telling him the 
Wyoming people must not be allowed to get frightened in other 
sections and shoot Indians in their panic, or there certainly would 
be a good old Indian war in earnest. The present afifair was a 
flash in the pan, but it would be easy enough to get up a real 
war. 

" There is no reason to believe there is any more danger at 
Swan Creek or Gray's Mountain or any of the other points now 



86 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

sending out alarming reports than there is right here. General 
Coppinger received a telegram to-day stating that two hundred 
hostiles were in one particular section of the country, and that 
the situation was critical. The next courier brought another 
telegram asserting that the Indians were merely returning to 
their reservation, and so it goes. 

'* The man who has done the most to cause this farce is the 
proprietor of a hunting ranch on Jackson's Lake. He told of In- 
dian guards watching Teton Pass to keep assistance out from the 
beleaguered settlers when no such condition existed; and, as a 
matter of fact, he had not been within thirty miles of the pass. 
This man tried hard to induce General Coppinger to go into the 
hole by Conant Pass so that the troops would build a road to his 
ranch. All is serene here and will remain so, if the white people 
have any sense at all." 

At that period, 1835, the close of the Seminole war, there was 
an opportunity and an ofTer to the many discharged volunteers 
to engage, I will not say m a just or an unjust war, against 
Mexico, for the independence of Texas, but each and every 
Florida soldier declared that he had all the powder and war he 
desired. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

A CONDENSED HISTORY OF MEXICO. 

/^BSERVING reader, I will here jot down within the quin- 
essence of brevity a fair and impartial exhibit of the early 
history of Mexico, a portion penciled by self, dating back to the 
days of Emperor Iturbide; the bulk of a century now past and 
gone. No fictitious history of empire could be penned bv man 
to eclipse the tragical reality of the now Republic of Mexico, a 
portion of which would never have been given to the world had 
Sailor I been wrecked in early youth, or kept no diary to sup- 
ply the unacquainted and stranger, tramp historian to make a 
dime. 

In an endeavor to do justice to Mexico, I published over my 
signature a portion of the facts here given, in that well-known 
and widely circulated journal, the " Inter-Ocean " of Chicago, in 
September, 1891. It is well known that, at an early day, even 
a half century back, that we did not possess the means of com- 
munication that we now possess. We had no fast ocean 
steamers; but few railroads; no telegraph; few journals or 
periodicals, and no Associated Press. Consequently, knowledge 
of occurring events, even of great moment, was not disseminated, 
but passed into oblivion. 

Mexico, as a nation, has never received due credit for her 
virtues or achievements, while her delinquencies have been mag- 
nified. She has had no foreign allies, but alone and without 
assistance overcame foreign and domestic tyranny. 

She had been a valuable but discontented province of Spain 
from her conquest by Cortes in 1520 down to 1808, when Napo- 
leon Bonaparte invited the royal family of Spain to visit France, 
and on their arrival cast them into prison at Bayonne, and then 

87 



88 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

required the father to abdicate the throne of Spain to his son, 
and then required the son to renounce his crown to Joseph Bona- 
parte. The mother country thus becoming subject to a foreign 
power, the Creoles of Mexico considered it a favorable oppor- 
tunity to throw off the despotic colonial system and establish an 
independent government. 

Then the brave and noble-hearted priest, Don Mogul Hidalgo 
Castilla, in the name of the great Jehovah, buckled on his armor 
and stepped forward to emancipate his kindred and the native 
Aztecs from Spanish tyranny. He unfurled the standard of inde- 
pendence, and for a time was victorious in many well-fought 
battles, but was finally vanquished and shot to death July 27, 
181 1, as a traitor to Spain. 

Priest Hidalgo's great drawback and misfortune was a lack of 
ammunition and arms; had he possessed military stores and arms 
equal to his adversaries, then without a doubt he would have 
achieved a lasting victory instead of defeat and death. At that 
day, and previously, it was not a surprise to see a priest or a 
bishop buckle on a keen-edged sword and enter into the battle- 
field with the cross resting on his breast. A man thus doubly 
armed is more dangerous than a regiment. Yes, at that day no 
surprise was exhibited if a priest or a bishop armed and openly 
appeared at the head of troops, or at the head of a state combina- 
tion, or was the chief in command of a political plot — and where 
can any objection rest if the commander can select the Lord's side 
of the line? For instance, when Napoleon imprisoned Spain's 
royal family at Bayonne, and a governing junta was formed in 
Spain, the Archbishop of Laodicea was president of that junta, 
and in Mexico a priest. Father Morelos, also raised a regiment, 
chiefly native Aztecs, to give Mexico her independence. 

Mexico was valuable to Spain as is Cuba at this day as tax- 
payers, and she was not willing to surrender her Mexican tax- 
payers without a struggle and a heavy flow of Spanish blood. 

The crown of Spain had, previous to the Guerrero and Iturbide 
junction and revolution of 1821, quartered a vast body of its ad- 
herents as ofificers on the Mexican people, and up to that date, 



H 




THE SCHOONER " .AH^rrA-MOR A." 



A CONDENSED HISTORY OF MEXICO. 89 

by their own reckoning, received $21,000,000 net revenue into 
the treasury of the crown. Of this sum $1,500,000 was a capi- 
tation tax paid by Aztecs, a vast sum for naked aboriginals to 
pay a pampered monarchy, yet white men this day in Cuba do 
the same. 

In 1812 Don Jose Toledo appeared in Washington, D. C, and 
with the knowledge of the American authorities formed plans and 
enlisted 160 men and several officers for the purpose of invading 
New Spain. This I believe to be the first filibustering expedition 
known from the United States. Upon entering the province 
many lovers of self-government flocked to the ranks of Toledo; 
and the garrison town of San Antonio de Baxar, the then capital 
of the department of Texas, was taken. The following year Don 
Toledo was attacked by superior numbers and defeated, but saved 
his life by flight to the United States. 

In succeeding years several other revolutionary commanders 
shared the fate of Toledo, without gaining any vantage ground, 
except to teach the people the use of arms, up to 1821, at which 
period the masses were ripe for a change in their condition. In 
that year Don Augustin Iturbide was, through a compromise of 
parties, appointed President and commander-in-chief of the revo- 
lutionists. The revolt was so general that few opponents could 
be found within the province, outside of two or three garrisoned 
seaport cities. Their old master, Spain, made but a feeble effort 
to regain these provinces, and in 1822 the United States Congress 
formally acknowledged the independence of Mexico. 

Iturbide soon became amoitious, and on the i8th of March, 
1822, his partisans, backed by the soldiery, conspired and pro- 
claimed him Emperor of Mexico, under the title of Augustin I. 
He immediately proved to be a tyrant and attempted to render 
himself absolute. He dissolved Congress and cast thirteen of the 
members into prison. Thus was a revolution for liberty merged 
into despotism. Those and other tyrannical acts exasperated the 
people. Among the most bitter of his opponents was a former 
adherent, General Santa Anna, then in command of forces at 
Vera Cruz, who declared armed hostility to the usurper who, in 



90 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

March, 1823, was compelled to relinquish his imperial diadem 
and leave Mexico for Leghorn. 

The following year Iturbide returned to Mexico in disguise, 
was arrested and shot July 10, 1824, as a traitor to his country. 
After the departure of Iturbide from Mexico General Guada- 
lupe Victoria, styled " The Washington of Mexico," on account 
of his arduous services to his country during her fifteen years' 
conflict for independence, was chosen President and General 
Bravo Vice President. A constitution similar in almost every 
respect to that of the United States was adopted, known as " the 
constitution of 1824." In 1826, under Victoria's administration, 
an act was passed abolishing forever all titles of nobility in Mex- 
ico, and also a decree prohibiting the importation of slaves under 
the penalty of confiscation of vessels; the captain, owners, and 
purchaser of slaves to suffer ten years' imprisonment, and the 
slaves being declared free from the moment they had landed on 
Mexican soil. 

In 1828 an abortive revolt was attempted by General Montano, 
backed by Vice President Bravo, both of whom were banished 
from the country. 

The administration of Victoria was one of happiness and pro3- 
perity. 

President Victoria's four-years' term of office being about to 
expire, an election for President, under the constitution, was in 
order, and Gomez Pedraza and Vincent Guerrero entered the 
presidential arena. Pedraza was without doubt elected t^ two 
electoral votes, and Anstacia Bustamente, who ran on the same 
ticket, was elected Vice President; but Guerrero's partisans, one 
of whom was Santa Anna, alleged that he had been defeated 
through fraud. Santa Anna threatened to sustain Guerrero by 
force of arms and was suspended from his command. He then 
secretly organized a conspiracy, but soon openly proclaimed his 
purpose. He secured the fealty of his regiment, and hostilities 
were soon commenced against the government troops, who were 
commanded by Pedraza in person. Pedraza was defeated within 
the City of Mexico after a fearful combat of three days, in which 



A CONDENSED HISTORY OF MEXICO. 9I 

over eight hundred Mexicans were slain, and over one thousand 
wounded, and an immense amount of property destroyed. 

Guerrero took no part in the sanguinary conflict, but resided 
quietly on his estate, until made President by military force and 
the declaration of Congress in January, 1829. Bustamente, who 
ran on the Pedraza ticket, was proclaimed Vice President, and 
Santa Anna was made Secretary of War. One of the first meas- 
ures of Guerrero's administration was a decree expelling from 
Mexico all natives of Spain, but this decree was never fully en- 
forced. 

In the early part of the Guerrero administration, Ferdinand 
VII. of Spain, who had in 1808 surrendered the crown of his 
father to Joseph Bonaparte, fitted out a large squadron and cap- 
tured Tampico. The Mexicans, in a very limited time, raised 
and equipped an army superior in numbers, forced their old and 
most bitter enemies to surrender, and made stipulation to lay 
down their arms and never more invade Mexican territory they 
were permitted to return to Havana, from whence they had 
embarked. 

When the intelligence of the invasion by Spain reached the 
City of Mexico Congress assembled, and under the constitution 
passed a resolution investing the President with dictatorial 
powers. Under this invested power President Guerrero, on the 
nth of September, 1829, issued a decree abolishing slavery 
throughout the republic. This act of goodness of heart did not 
add to Guerrero's popularity. The owners of the African slaves 
pronounced the act uncalled for, as it was not a necessity grow- 
ing out of the invasion. The slaveholders within the United 
States also bitterly denounced President Guerrero. 

This emancipation decree caused an unfriendly ripple between 
the citizens of the South and Mexico that was detrimental to the 
prosperity of both republics. '• 

The ambitious Vice President, Bustamente, considered it 
a favorable time to place himself in power, and, lago-like, 
proceeded to dispose of Guerrero. He worked upon his 
feelings by picturing to him the enormity of his acts, 



92 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

especially his decree abolishing slavery, and laid before 
him the great danger he was in from a wronged and 
enraged people. At the same time he was secretly form- 
ing a conspiracy for his overthrow, and, finally throwing of¥ 
the mask, he openly proclaimed that Guerrero had violated the 
constitution by seizing the Presidency through force of arms 
when not elected. Guerrero declined to be sustained by military 
force and resigned to Congress his dictatorial powers, departed 
from the capital, and was preparing to leave the republic when 
Bustamente, who was Vice President, succeeded to the Presiden- 
tial chair; his first official act was to declare Guerrero an outlaw. 
Guerrero was captured and a Cabinet called, presided over by 
Bustamente. The decision of the council was that Guerrero 
should be treated as a common criminal, and tried by a military 
tribunal. The trial immediately followed, and Guerrero was sen- 
tenced and shot as a common criminal on the loth day of Feb- 
ruary, 1 83 1. 

Thus the emancipator of slavery in the Mexican Republic, like 
the emancipator of slavery in the American Republic, met an un- 
timely death. 

President Guerrero had rendered arduous and valuable services 
to his country in many conflicts on the tented field, during her 
protracted struggle with Spain for her independence, and his 
short administration was noted for wisdom and clemency. 

As soon as Guerrero was disposed of, Bustamente established 
a perfect despotism and proved to be a boundless tyrant, whose 
cruelty eclipsed that of Nero. He disregarded all legal acts, and 
to complain of his oppression was death. His military officers 
partook of his example. One instance will suffice: a newspaper 
published an article reflecting on the acts of an army officer; the 
officer ordered the press destroyed and the editor, who was then 
under arrest, shot. The order was immediately obeyed. 

A decree was issued for the expulsion of all foreigners from 
Mexico who had not settled under the colonization laws of 1825. 
This decree was aimed at the settlers in Texas. 

Discontent prevailed throughout the republic, and in 1832 



A CONDENSED HISTORY OF MEXICO. 93 

Santa Anna, who had remained in retirement since the fall of 
Guerrero, collected an army from several disaffected military 
posts for the purpose of deposing the tyrant. When Bustamente 
learned that Santa Anna was marching to the capital with an 
armed force, and found himself through his unpopularity unpre- 
pared to resist, he relinquished his power into the hands of Con- 
gress, and flea from the country. Santa Anna immediately sent 
a vessel to the United States for Pedraza, whom he had deposed 
in 1828, and placed him in the Presidential chair to serve the 
short remainder of the term for which he had been elected. 
Then he retired to his estate, well knowing that a grateful people 
would soon tender him the Presidency. 

In 1833 Antonio Lopez Santa Anna was elected President 
without a competitor; but he, like Iturbide and Bustamente, also 
became ambitious, and plainly showed a desire to raise himself 
to absolute power. He abolished the constitution of 1824, and 
dissolved by decree the constitutional council of senators known 
as the General Council. He increased his army, and appointed 
his adherents as governors. Several states took up arms against 
the usurper, but were speedily subdued. In his message of 1835 
he plainly told the people that they were not worthy of a free 
government, and that the object of Congress was to perfect the 
opinions of the President. Being in fear of the Republicans on 
account of his schemes of centralization and self-aggrandizement, 
he sought the influence of the clergy and the old-time Royalists, 
who had denounced all the forms of the Republican Congress as 
invading the sacred rights of the Church. Military despotism 
was fully established. Confiscation and imprisonment followed 
resistance, and for a season Santa Anna was truly dictator. 

The State of Texas at this period, 1835, contained a population 
of some fifty-three thousand, who had been uneasy and discon- 
tented, even to armed resistance, during the Bustamente adminis- 
tration. They now felt greatly exasperated at the unwarranted 
acts of Santa Anna and his ofBcers, and especially at the acts dis- 
solving their legislatmes by a military order and imprisoning 
their representatives at the capital, as well as the act abolishing 



94 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

the constitution of 1824, which they had considered one of the 
safeguards of their Hberties. Santa Anna should have known 
that the science of revolution was well known in Mexico, and 
could and would be put in force at short notice. The usurper 
issued a manifesto against the disaffected Texans, and dispatched 
a force of fifteen hundred soldiers, under command of General 
Cos, to carry out his decree. General Cos, under the new system 
of centralism, was Military Governor, and the people of Texas 
saw their only safety in armed resistance. At the same period a 
'fortunate coincidence for Texas took place without any concert 
of action, which beyond a* doubt saved the Texans from ban- 
ishment or extermination, and bestowed independence in 1836. 

This coincidence, or act, was the assembling, equipping, and 
marching to the battlefield of Texas many hundreds of volun- 
teers from the United States, but principally from New Orleans. 
Of those volunteers nearly four hundred, all young men, em- 
barked at one time on one vessel, and several hundred followed, 
and arrived in time to be engaged in the first battles of the cam- 
paign of 1835 • the battle of the Mission, and the storming of the 
fortified town of San Antonio, under the command of Colonel 
Milam until his death on the field, then under General Burlston to 
the final surrender of the Mexican forces of General Cos, on De- 
cember 1 1, 1835, and after a siege of several days, with many hand- 
to-hand contests. Under this capitulation large, valuable, and 
much-needed munitions of war fell into the hands of the Texans. 
The surrender of General Cos terminated the campaign of 1835. 

A majority of the soldiers actively engaged in those memo- 
rable battles were the United States volunteers. Those from 
Louisiana were known throughout the campaign as '' the New 
Orleans Grays." John C. Calhoun, at the time of the enlistment 
of these volunteers, was bitterly denounced by many Northern 
journals, as the originator of the movement, with a view to ex- 
tending slavery. This accusation was unjust, as he could not 
have even known of the movement until after many hundred had 
embarked. 

It becomes necessary to a life's voyage to say that the 



A CONDENSED HISTORY OF MEXICO. 95 

first move or call for United States volunteers to aid Texas in her 
struggle for independence was made by Sailor I, without any con- 
cert of action or consultation with even a single individual. 
When word arrived at New Orleans by vessel that the represent- 
atives of Texas who were Americans had been cast into prison 
at the City of Mexico, and that President Santa Anna had issued 
a manifesto requiring the Texans to leave the State, I felt that 
they were not properly treated, and that they merited aid. On 
October ii, 1835, I wrote the following notice, a copy of which 
is now before me: 

" The friends of Texas are requested to meet at Bank's Arcade 
to-morrow evening, October 12, at seven o'clock, to consult 
and adopt measures for the relief of the oppressed Texans." I 
took this notice to Editor Putnam P. Rea of the New Orleans 
** Bulletin," and asked him if he would publish the call; he re- 
plied, '' Certainly, with pleasure." The meeting took place, but 
the big men rushed in, took possession of the meeting, crowded 
the boys into the background. William Christy, Esq., was 
called to the chair, and James Ramage, Esq., was appointed 
secretary; Randal Hunt, Esq., an attorney of eminence, made a 
stirring and patriotic address, and Sailor I talked to the vast 
assembly, but was awfully scared at standing before so many 
big men — more scared than I was when the pirates of the Baha- 
mas gave us chase and fired their cannon at us, and when gloomy 
Jo reckoned the extent of our lives to be two hours. 

Lists were opened for volunteers, and over 150 names were 
immediately entered, and those volunteers adjourned to meet in 
the Customhouse Square next day at 7 o'clock a. m. for drill. 
On the 17th of October, just five days after the first call for volun- 
teers, 380 cleared from the port on board of a sailing vessel, name 
obliterated, as the act would forever afYect her intercourse 
in the Mexican trade, and it would also afTect her officers and 
owners. 

Mexico possessed several well-armed vessels, and an encounter 
with them was not desired by the unknown. To obtain arms 
every good rifle for sale in the city wag donated or purchased, 



96 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. ' j 

then a house-to-house call for a donation of rifles, muskets, navy 
pistols, and ammunition was made by express wagons in charge 
of officers, and many first-class weapons were donated. Several 
veterans, with looks of sorrow, parted with their rifles that they 
had stood behind at the Jackson and Pakenham battle of New 
Orleans in January, 1815. 

The unknown was not pierced for cannon and carried none, 
but her 400 men, including crew, did not propose to be seized 
upon and shot to death as pirates without a desperate struggle. 
Death was sure to follow capture; as we were bandit invaders, we 
had no claim to quarter. Our programme was, if overhauled 
by a Mexican revenue cutter or a cruiser, to immediately act on 
the ofifensive. First to store our strength, the troops, out of sight ; 
then to run into or alongside of the enemy, make fast to her and 
then rush our 380 armed soldiers onto her decks. With this 
intent, in addition to our firearms, numbering near 500 pieces, I 
had 100 common boathooks ground sharp at my workshop, to be 
used as boarding pikes, and the volunteers had received, whilst 
on shore, three days' constant drill, and were immediately on 
setting sail divided into squads, put under drill with arms, or drill 
for attacking and boarding an enemy's ship, and very soon they 
could move with the precision of a Hoe printing press. A safe 
and quick landing was made at the then obscure port of Indian- 
ola, on the Bay of San Antonio. Then came to the volunteers 
hardships and privations impossible to picture with pen and ink. 
Whilst on drill within the Customhouse Square at New Orleans, 
many of the volunteers spoke and felt that they could hew their 
way to the halls of the Montezumas, but when marching from 
Indianola, hungry and thirsty, they were willing to shorten the 
distance to fame and immortality, even to the sacrifice of the 
coveted prize. On the 18th of October, the following day after 
the unknown set sail for Mexico, the steamer " Anachitat " 
cleared from the port of New Orleans with other volunteers for 
Texas, the number unknown to me. One fact I do know, that 
the United States volunteers engaged on the battlefields oi Texas 
outnumbered the home troops, both in the campaign of 1835 ^^^ 



A CONDENSED HISTORY OF MEXICO. 97 

1836. No doubt files of journals of 1835 exist in New 
Orleans, to more fully give this eventful history of that day. 

The most extraordinary fact in connection with those volun- 
teers and the Texas campaign of 1835 was that, within sixty days 
of the call to arms, not one armed Mexican was quartered within 
the State of Texas. The campaign of 1835 was ended, but not 
so with the campaign of 1836, which possessed its horrors; but 
I was not a witness of 1836. The Texas revolution was not a 
revolution for slavery, and Mr. Calhoun took no part in it. 

True, wealthy citizens, many of them slaveholders, con- 
tributed funds. Mr. Calhoun's State did not furnish thirty men 
(direct from the State) as volunteers during the campaign of 
1835, and a less number than Ohio in 1836. But when the ques- 
tion of annexing Texas to the United States came before the 
authorities at Washington, Mr. Calhoun, then Secretary of State, 
used every exertion to consummate the annexation. 

The surrender of General Cos' forces caused a cessation of 
hostilities, and the services of the United States volunteers were 
no longer required in active war. Few of them possessed funds; 
the wardrobe of all was scant; they were strangers in a sparsely 
settled country distracted by war, and no employment was to be 
had; consequently, about 170, to secure shelter and rations, gar- 
risoned the Alamo, under the command of Colonel W. B. Travis, 
and a large number quartered at Goliad and vicinity. At this 
period the general opinion in Texas was that the Mexicans were 
vanquished or disheartened, and would never invade Texan terri- 
tory again, but Santa Anna surprised the unwary by appearing be- 
fore the Alamo with a large army, and after a siege of several days 
he made an assault on the morning of March 6, 1836, and put 
every occupant to the sword, save a black boy, a servant of Gen- 
eral Travis. One soldier had, the evening previons, scaled the 
walls, and unobserved made his escape. Among the slain was the 
far-famed Colonel David Crockett, who was at that time a guest 
of Commander Travis. The above facts, respecting the two who 
escaped and the position of Colonel Crockett, we personally ob- 
tained from a citizen residing at the time but a few rods from the 



98 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Alamo. No doubt the boy's color, and being a non-combatant, 
saved his life. 

Many journals, in speaking of this massacre, have placed Colo- 
nel Crockett in command. The prevailing opinion of Colonel 
Crockett is that he was an uncouth person, dressed as a hunter, 
and surrounded by his dogs. This is an error. True, he re- 
ceived little or no education in his youth, l)ut after he arrived at 
manhood he employed his spare time in cultivating his mind, and 
became one of Tennessee's best speakers as well as statesmen. 
He was twice elected to the legislature of his State and for three 
terms to the United States Congress. He was a Whig, and 
stumped his State as an opponent of Jackson and Van Buren, 
which fact defeated him on his fourth nomination for Congress. 
This defeat cost him his life, as he immediately journeyed to his 
death in Texas. Crockett wrote the life of Martin Van Buren, 
which was well spiced with satirical flings. His powerful address 
at Benton, Miss., spoke his ability. 

The Alamo massacre, which is always spoken of with horror, 
did not compare in numbers or atrocity with the massacre at 
Goliad, where on the 27th of the same month, March, Colonel 
Fannen and his forces, over five hundred men, after a persistent 
and hard-fought battle, were by order of the Mexican commander, 
General Urrea, marched out of the fort in four divisions, and 
over four hundred shot, in violation of the terms of their sur- 
render. A few broke through the armed lines of the Mexicans 
and made their escape by swimming the San Antonio River; a 
portion were saved to perform labor in moving Mexican military 
stores. Almost every man who met this cruel death at Goliad, 
like those of the Alamo, were United States volunteers. 

The now generally received opinion, even in Texas, is that 
General Sam Houston was the Washington, ever in the field the 
commander-in-chief, the head and front of the revolution from 
its incipiency. This is an error. He never appeared in com- 
mand of forces in any engagement during the campaign of 1835. 
As a civilian he was a valuable citizen, but when he did put in an 
appearance in 1836, at San Jacinto, he m^de amends for his tardi- 



A CONDENSED HISTORY OF MEXICO. 99 

ness, and S. T. Austin, who was considered by the army to be too 
conservative or timid, was provided with a mission to the United 
States in behalf of Texas. 

A large number of the Texans, upon the approach of Santa 
Anna's invading army — principally those with families — fled 
toward the United States border, promising to return as soon as 
they deposited their families in safety. But very few returned 
during the war, leaving the volunteers to defend their homes. In 
recording these facts we do not mean to imply that the masses 
of the Texans were lacking in duty or bravery, for they were not. 

Santa Anna, flushed with victory, continued his march east- 
ward with 1800 of his best troops, and on the evening of April 
20 he camped on the San Jacinto, in sight of the Texans. On 
the 2 1 St General Houston, with his little army of some 780 men, 
amid the war cry of '' Remember the Alamo and Goliad! " made 
a charge of desperation on the Mexicans, leaving 700 dead upon 
the field, while over 700 were taken prisoners, with their com- 
mander. General Santa Anna. 

The general feeling of the Texans was to put Santa Anna to 
the sword, but he was a diplomatist and equal to the emergency. 
Few men with the blood of the Alamo and Goliad fresli upon 
their hands could have so coolly faced the infuriated soldiery. 

He told them that Santa Anna alive was more valuable to them 
than Santa Anna dead ; that as the ruler of Mexico he possessed 
power, although a prisoner, and could give them independence. 
Stipulations were entered into that the second division of the in- 
vading army under General Urrea should leave the State, and 
that he, for Mexico, acknowledged the independence of Texas, 
with the Rio Grande as the southwestern boundary, and would 
never more invade the State of Texas. Then the flag of the 
Lone Star of Liberty was unfurled on the banks of the San 
Jacinto, which reduced Mexico's sixteen states to fifteen. 

Fully one-half of General Houston's victorious army were 
United States volunteers, representing every State in the Union. 
Most of those from the North and West enlisted at New Orleans ; 
but the Southern States furnished about sixty-five per cent, of all 



loo A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

volunteers. Francis Moore of Ohio arrived in Texas in 1836, 
with his company of " Buckeye Rangers," while Sidney Sherman 
of Cincinnati, ()., raised a cavalry company sixty strong, which 
he commanded at San Jacinto. Santa Anna was sent from Texas 
to Washington, D. C, in January, 1837, and returned from 
there to Mexico, to be twice thereafter banished from his coun- 
try, and twice elected President. In 1868, while an exile in New 
York, he planned an expedition against President Juarez, and 
was arrested on landing at Vera Cruz and sentenced to death, but 
was pardoned by Juarez, on condition of leaving the country. 

One of the objects of this condensed history is to do justice to 
Mexico, where it is due; also to the long-neglected volunteers 
from the United States, most of whom sacrificed their lives in 
procuring for Texas its independence* and for which they suf- 
fered every privation and hardship through hunger and thirst, 
through sickness and painful death. No commissary stores fol- 
lowed their marches; no skilled surgeons or hospital nurses ad- 
ministered to their wants; the earth was their couch, and Heav- 
en's broad arch their canopy. Their resolution was unbounded. 
No sooner had they driven the Mexicans out of Texas in 1835 
than they equipped a force commanded by Colonel Johnson and 
Major R. C. Morris, of the '' New Orleans Grays," for the cap- 
ture of Matamoras. 

This expedition proved a failure, and cost the volunteers many 
lives. Then in 1841 the remnant of them, in connection with 
Texans, numbering in all 335 men, formed an expedition for the 
subjugation of New Mexico. This expedition also proved very 
unfortunate. They suffered greatly in the mountains and lost 
several of their number, and were finally betrayed and then cap- 
tured at San Miguel, by Armijo, Governor of Mexico. Had the 
Pathfinder, General Fremont, when on his mountain journey in 
1845 directed his steps a few days' travel southward, the charred 
remains of the campfires of those volunteers could have been 
ignited to give him warmth, and their westward trails would 
have guided his course to the Pacific coast. 

Notwithstanding Mexico's internal and external wars, she 



A CONDENSED HISTORY OF MEXICO. loi 

made a progress in prosperity equal to many European nations, 
and the mercantile world considered her market very valuable, 
and her mines were estimated to produce, in gold and silver, five 
times more than all the mines of Europe combined. Some sixty 
years back her vast resources in gold and silver, and her valuable 
markets for merchandise, aroused the cupidity of American mer- 
chants and shipowners; but a heavy duty on imports interfered 
with large profits. To avoid the payment of this duty, every 
species of ingenuity was adopted. Manifests were falsified, ton- 
nage underrated, vessels built with compartments and manned 
especially as smugglers, and when stealth failed bribery was re- 
sorted to. Thus fully one-third of all American exports to 
Mexico was run in free of duty. It was estimated at this period 
that the American merchants carried out of Mexico about six- 
teen million dollars in gold and silver annually, besides products 
amounting to a great many millions. I was solicited to invest 
and embark in this illicit commerce as early as 1832; therefore I 
speak knowingly. 

The larger portion of this contraband commerce was carried 
on from New Orleans, then the heaviest shipping port in the 
known world, her foreign exports exceeding those of all other 
seaports in the United States combined. Many of those contra- 
band vessels and cargoes were seized and confiscated, upon which 
the owners set up a cry of lamentation, and the United States 
authorities were appealed to. A commission was appointed to 
hear and record an amount of perjury sufificient to sink a sub- 
stantial Sodom and Gomorrah. Indemnity was awarded, but 
payment deferred. In 1844 active measures were taken by the 
Cabinet at Washington, through Mr. Upshur, Secretary of State, 
and after his death, through Mr. Calhoun, toward the annexation 
of Texas to the United States, and also to enforce the payment 
of this unrighteous indemnity, which Mexico persistently claimed 
was unjustly awarded. 

In confirmation of this statement of dissatisfaction we will go 
to the archives at Washington. There we find an extraordinary 
message sent by President Polk to Congress, in which the Presi- 



102 A LIFE'S VOYAGfi. 

dent, in speaking of the mission of Mr. John SHdell to Mexico, 
says: 

'* Mr. Shdell was sent to Mexico with full power to adjust all 
the questions in dispute between the two governments; both 
the question of the Texas boundary and the indemnification to 
our citizens." But Mr. Slidell's mission proved to be ill-timed, 
as Mexico had already informed the Washington Cabinet that 
annexation should be followed by war, and annexation was at 
that time consummated. 

At the same time that Mr. Slidell was journeying to Mexico, 
General Taylor's army of over four thousand soldiers, soon to 
be largely increased, was marching to the Rio Grande. Two 
bombastic and haughty letters from Mr. Slidell were addressed 
to the authorities at the Mexican capital, demanding their atten- 
tion. Invasion having taken place, the Mexican Government 
refused to treat with Mr. Slidell, and Mr. Lanzas, the Mexican 
Minister of Foreign Aflfairs, forwarded to him his passports. 

It is very clear upon an unbiased survey of all the well-known 
circumstances that this war, which placed a stigma on America, 
could have been averted by a discreet and judicious administra- 
tion, and at the same time have produced about the same re- 
sults. But our Government was controlled by evident greed, 
backed by duplicity, to obtain indemnity and to embrace the 
territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, which was 
never within the boundaries of Texas, nor even claimed to be 
until after the act of Santa Anna in purchasing his life when a 
prisoner at San Jacinto; an act which the then Mexican Con- 
gress very properly disavowed. 

In several of the Mexican battles with the United States, Santa 
Anna, the Napoleon of the New World, the maker and deposer 
of presidents, was in command. He entered public life when 
twenty-three years of age, and died in the city of Mexico in his 
eighty-fourth year. 

The masses of the Americans, judging from past and present 
actions, do not fully appreciate the real value of the commerce 
and markets of Mexico, and the necessity of amicable relations 



A CONDENSED HISTORY OF MEXICO. ioj 

and fair dealing to reap the benefit. And many Americans, not 
lacking in goodness of heart, but deficient in a proper knowledge 
of the Mexicans, write them down as ignorant barbarians. Never 
was there a greater error. Mexico has had her diplomatists — her 
Websters, Clays, Bentons, and Blaines — in her Lanzas, Peny y 
Pena, Bocanegra, and Almonte, and the records of her diplo- 
macy, now within the archives at Washington, bear the stamp of 
equality with, if not of superiority over those of Calhoun, 
Buchanan, Donaldson, and Slidell, all of whom were actors in 
this tragedy. 

As evidence of diplomatic ability, I quote the following passage 
from the declaration of Mr. Bocanegra, the Mexican Minister of 
Foreign Relations, addressed to Waddy Thompson, our Minis- 
ter in Mexico, August 23, 1843, on the annexation question, in 
which Mr. Bocanegra says: 

'' And if a party in Texas is now endeavoring to effect its incor- 
poration with the United States, it is from a consciousness of 
their notorious incapability to form and constitute an inde- 
pendent nation, without their having changed their situation or 
acquired any right to separate themselves from their mother 
country. His Excellency the President, resting on this deep 
conviction, is obliged to prevent aggression, unprecedented in the 
annals of the world, from being consummated; and if it be indis- 
pensable for the Mexican nation to seek security for its rights at 
the expense of the disasters of war, it will call upon God, and rely 
on its own efforts for the defense of its just cause." 

A short time subsequent General Almonte, Mexico's Minister 
at Washington, addressed a note to Mr. Upshur, Secretary of 
State, in which the following passage is a portion : 

'' But if, contrary to the hopes and wishes entertained by the 
Government of the undersigned for the preservation of the good 
understanding and harmony which should reign between the two 
neighboring and friendly republics, the United States should, in 
defiance of good faith and the principles of justice which they 
have constantly proclaimed, commit the unheard-of act of vio- 
lence of appropriating to themselves an integrant part of the 



I04 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Mexican territory, the undersigned, in the name of his nation, 
and now for them, protests in the most solemn manner against 
such an aggression; and he moreover declares, by express order 
of his Government, that on sanction being given by the Execu- 
tive of the Union to the incorporation of Texas into the United 
States, he will consider his mission ended, seeing that, as the 
Secretary of the State will have learned, the Mexican Govern- 
ment is resolved to declare war as soon as it receives intimation of 
such an act." 

Many Americans claim advancement in civilization on account 
of their abolishing slavery, yet the abolition of slavery by Mexico 
preceded that of the United States by thirty-five years. 

In 1861 Mexico became greatly embarrassed, partly through 
her war with the United States. Her indebtedness having 
matured, she suspended payments to all foreign countries ; there- 
upon England, France, and Spain united for the purpose of 
obtaining satisfaction. Mexico was invaded, and terms sat- 
isfactory to England and Spain were agreed upon. France 
declined to ratify the agreement and declared war. After subju- 
gating several states Napoleon III., in 1864, induced Maximil- 
ian, Archduke of Austria, to become Emperor of Mexico. One 
of his first acts w^as to decree that all who adhered to the Repub- 
lic should be put to death, and many were shot and others 
imprisoned. 

This act sealed the Emperor's doom. Little did Maximilian 
know that no people loved liberty more and feared death less than 
did the masses of the Mexicans. The Republicans united and 
defeated the Emperor's army in several hard-fought bat- 
tles. Maximilian was taken prisoner and shot on June 18, 
1867. 

Through various authentic sources I estimate that during 
Mexico's revolutionary war of fifteen years and her numerous 
internal wars, together with her American and French wars, 
nearly six hundred thousand of her citizens were slain, and not 
less than one hundred thousand of those were non-combatants. 
For instance, the Spanish General Coliejo slaughtered over four 



: A CONDENSED HISTORY OF MEXICO. 105 

thousand fleeing citizens of Quautia in one day, all unarmed, and 
mostly non-combatants. 

It is evident that ever since our war with Mexico that a pres- 
sure has been brought to bear on the American people and the 
Government to induce hostilities with Mexico; or at least to 
create a harvest on the Texas frontier for speculators and adven- 
turers, through quartering an army on the Rio Grande. For 
this purpose they cry, '' Mexican mule and cattle raid." In 1835 
and 1836 a few hundred volunteers drove not merely a few raid- 
ers, but large and well-organized armies from the State. Now, a 
well-armed and populous State prays to the American governmen- 
tal authorities almost yearly for protection of life and property. 

A tabulation of the number of raids and herds of Mexican 
cattle seized on by Texan raiders would be both lengthy and 
interesting. But the scarcity of cattle on the Mexican side of 
the Rio Grande has greatly curtailed the trade in late years. Yet 
Texas journals occasionally record raids into Mexico by Tex- 
ans for the purpose of procuring cattle free of cost. But those 
raids of Texans are not reported over the country by the Asso- 
ciated Press, nor are the number of raiders, and of mules and 
cattle, magnified by the Texas press. 

There is not a shadow of doubt but that usurpation by the 
military has been the bane of Mexico, retarding its prosperity 
and impairing its happiness as a nation. The writer has noted 
her prosperity and adversities since 1830, and should have 
knowledge of results; but if there is any virtue in a nation being 
exempt from bloodshed and broils, it is a virtue that the United 
States cannot claim to possess, as each passing year plainly 
shows; yet the very actors of those horrors cry " Butchers! " and 
point an indignant finger at Mexico. 

The New Orleans '* Times-Democrat " of May 14, 1883, now 
before me, in publishing occurrences of half a century back, in a 
portion of its article says, '' There is now on a short visit to our 
city a gentleman who fifty years ago constructed many of the 
most prominent buildings of our city. Mr. A. C. Fulton, now 
hale and hearty, although he is over seventy-three years of age, is 



lo6 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

on his way to Texas and Mexico to look over the battlefields. In 
1833-34, he put up on the site of the St. James Hotel, the well- 
known resort of those days, the Banks Arcade, a portion of which 
is now being removed, after half a century, to make way for the 
new Produce Exchange. 

** In 1835, Santa Anna, then Dictator of Mexico, having im- 
prisoned in the City of Mexico the Representatives of the then 
Mexican state of Texas, issued his pronunciamento requiring all 
Americans to leave that state under penalty if they were found 
within its limits. Mr. Fulton espoused the cause of Texas, and 
through the city papers here, on the 12th of October, 1835, called 
upon the citizens to assemble to take action in behalf of the 
oppressed lexans. A corps of 380 volunteers were raised, and 
they were armed by the wealthy citizns of New Orleans. 

" They embarked immediately for Texas, and soon participated 
in the Battle of the Mission and the storming and the capture of 
the fortified city of San Antonio de Baxar, which ended the cam- 
paign of 1835. He then built a number of large stores, including 
the Thayer and Twitchell Block on Poydras Street, between 
Magazine and Camp streets. He, with Mr. Joseph Baldwin, the 
brother of Recorder Baldwin, well known in earlier days here, 
built an addition to the St. Mary Market and erected the Poy- 
dras Market. After losing a considerable sum on a cotton press 
on account of a panic, he put up the granite building No. iii 
Canal Street, and in 1841 he built for Jacob L. Florance No. 112 
Canal Street, and Nos. 8, 10, 12, and 14 St. Charles Street; in 1842 
for Mr. Florance, Paul Tulane, and Mr. Pelia he built a block of 
buildings on the triangle of Canal and Tchoupitoulas Street. 
Mr. Fulton's account of the extent of the city half a century ago 
is very interesting." 

A protested draft now before me says that my cotton press 
loss was $11,000, with an addition of $2.50 paid to Joseph Ben- 
raken Marks, a notary public, for protesting the non-payment. 

I omit a portion of the *' Times and Democrat's " article on ac- 
count of some small and unimportant errors in it; those errors 
are chiefly in dates and figures. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

OCCURRENCES IN NEW ORLEANS DURING THE THIRTIES. 

IN the thirties, as now, a race war broke out, but then the 
slavery question was annexed to it, but unintentionally and 
thoughtlessly by the prime movers. They cared not for the 
slave, but for self; a big commotion growing out of a tempest in 
a teapot: cannon mounted in the streets, solcHers fully equipped 
and placed on duty day and night, whilst the feared enemy were 
sleeping in their beds at their homes. The sequel was this: 
James Caldwell was finishing and decorating the interior of his 
new St. Charles Street Theater, and had employed Mr. B. Alex- 
ander, a free mulatto, to plat and superintend the work. The 
white workmen under him objected to his color, and other work- 
men, mine included, sympathized with them; a meeting was 
called for the coming Saturday evening, in front of the theater; 
speeches were made, and a resolve offered to never permit a free 
black to learn a trade, or teach a slave in mechanics. Mr. 
Caldwell appeared before the meeting and stated that it would 
be a great loss and injury to him if the work was suspended; that 
he had employed the yellow man because he knew he could per- 
form the work required, but notwithstanding his desire to retain 
the mulatto, he said, if there was a white man present who 
could take his place in every department, to step forward and he 
would then and there immediately employ him at good wages 
and dismiss the mulatto. Not a man offered to receive the good 
wages, for those who possessed proper knowledge well knew that 
it was almost impossible to perfect work and designs a portion 
of which were in place; a second portion ready to put in place 
or on his plans; and a third, a very important portion, in the 
brains of the mulatto. 

The meeting adjourned to meet on the morrow, Sunday, at 

107 



io8 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Jackson Square, to consult and pass resolves ; the action was con- 
sidered as a blow aimed at slavery. The enormity swept through 
the city as does a prairie fire before the wind. Every slaveholder 
was aroused. 

On Sunday a vast crowd assembled in Jackson Square; a 
speaker had just ascended the rostrum when General Plusha and 
his company of soldiers with drawn swords, closely followed by 
some twenty gendarmes, rushed into the square with the fury of 
a tempest, slashing their swords right and left; hundreds re- 
treated in bad order; the worst injured were some ten sailors, 
who, in their Sunday garb, had stepped over from their ships to 
see what kind of a craft was to be launched, and did not seek 
safety in flight, but one of them sang out the words '' Free trade 
and sailors' rights," which exasperated the general; after being 
hacked, and bleeding, they were cast into the calaboose. On the 
morrow they were brought before the court. Mr. William 
Christy volunteered to defend them; they had committed no 
wrong and were dismissed. The white workmen threatened 
vengeance, but used none, but went to their work. Two 
pieces of cannon with their gunners were placed in range on 
Chartres Street, and sentinels posted, which was a folly when a 
half dozen streets were left unguarded. 

Not long previous to this race war, a Mr. Pendergrass, a gen- 
tleman from Ireland, established a newspaper in New Orleans. 
He was learned, active, and shrewd, and said he would show 
the Americans how to conduct and run a newspaper. He 
espoused the workmen's cause and sought after the worst side of 
the feud; he made inquiry of my workmen respecting the facts. 
They told him that I had been an outside witness and could give 
the facts of the siege, and that I was awfully indignant at the 
abuse of the innocent sailors, but was down on the workmen for 
attempting to get up a strike without a cause, and that I had re- 
quested Lawyer Christy to defend the sailors. The editor called 
on me at the building, furnished paper, and requested me to write 
the facts, and to give my opinion of the outrage. I told him 
that I feared my ability in the writing line, but he urged the act, 



OCCURRENCES IN NEW ORLEANS. 109 

and I dusted off a corner of a work-bench and jotted down a fifth 
of a cohimn the best I could, with sympathy for the abused and 
imprisoned sailors, and with bitter contempt for their perse- 
cutors, but I imprudently spoke of hempen halters coupled with 
days from 1810 to 1815. I requested the editor to read my say; 
he did so; when he ended the reading I remarked that perhaps 
it was too hot for his type metal; he replied that his font came 
from Dublin and had been tested and could stand a volcano. 

The next issue of the Louisiana '' Advertiser " contained my 
hasty say, and it was located in the editorial column verbatim, 
not diluted in the smallest degree. General Plusha was awfully 
wolfish, and his braves caught the contagion and assembled in 
force, marched to Editor Pendergrass' printing office, drove the 
typesetters from their cases, cast the press in fragments out of the 
windows into the mud and slush of the unpaved, common street, 
and the type and furniture thrown on the top of the broken press. 
No one in the '' Advertiser's " building was injured by the sol- 
diers except the roller boy, who immediately acted on the defen- 
sive to protect his paraphernalia, which he did with well-marked 
effect. The editor was seized upon and thrown into the cala- 
boose, as was said, to protect him from violence. It was those 
who seized him that he feared. He had some sixty-five dollars 
in his pocket when he entered the prison; soon after being seated 
on a bench to mourn his sad fate, a dirty blanket was thrown 
over his head, and held down whilst his money was taken from 
his pockets. When he supposed the operation was over he threw 
off the blanket ; the nine or ten prisoners were innocently seated 
around the room, some telling yarns, some humming a tune, and 
all looking as innocent as lambs. 

A record of the tea|)ot v>ar must now exist within the files of 
the journals of that day, and out of the many thousands who 
viewed the wrecked furniture, printing cases, and forms of the 
Lousiana '' Advertiser " as they lay upon the muddy street, a few 
should now be present to give the history of the cowardly, un- 
called-for raid on the press; a war in which swords were pitted 
against brains. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

A VISIT TO THE OLD FARM HOME. 

IN 1838 I made my first sea voyage as a cabin passenger; not 
a deck or second-cabin passenger, but my choice of berths in 
the first cabin of a sumptuously furnished ship, on the same ocean 
where my home and quarters had CA^er been the cheerless fore- 
castle, my mess tossed to me in rusty, battered tin plates and 
pans, and my fraudulent, unsweetened, or molasses-sweetened 
coffee in a tin cup to match the set. Now a change of pure white 
china dishes and coffee cups; a downy bed to sleep upon, and 
astonishment that quick as lightning came through the cap- 
tain requesting me to take the head of the table, as the situ- 
ation required his presence on deck. No sleety sail to furl; no 
call at night, " All hands on deck," yet I dreamed of being called 
to go aloft, and dreamed of gloomy Jo and Bible John, and of 
my forecastle home. This was an every-day voyage; no ship- 
wreck, no man overboard, no short allowance, no pirates to fire 
on us, no mysterious girl to place beneath the waves, yet the 
voyage claimed space within my diary. 

This, my voyage, was from New Orleans to New York, on 
board of the fine steam-packet ship " Savannah," which had been 
running in the New Orleans and Galveston trade as a packet, 
and was making this eastern voyage via Charleston, S. C, to go 
into dock at New York, to receive a copper bottom and then re- 
turn to her Gulf trade. 

I consumed one day in overhauling New York, and consumed 
one day in overhauling Philadelphia; I then journeyed to the old 
farm home, which I had not seen for ten years. I concluded to 
play the wandering stranger, which I did successfully for the 
space of one hour, by asking my parents and brothers and sis- 



A VISIT TO THE OLD FARM HOME. iii 

ters the location of their long absent son and brother from whom 
they had seldom heard, and a multitude of like questions, before 
making myself known to them. My little baby sister, who was 
under five years of age when I made my last visit to the old farm 
home over ten years previously, had changed her baby slip for 
a lady's dress, and was no more a baby, for on my making myself 
known she seized me with the grasp and the power of a black- 
smith's vise. In like manner all had changed at the old farm 
home, and the once to me well-known cows, horses, pigs, and 
chickens were all gone, and a new race stood in their place. The 
apple orchard had grown old; the peach trees had lived their 
allotted days and departed, and flax had been harvested where 
they had blossomed and borne fruit. Mothers at that day spun 
the flax raised on the farms to make their linen, and spun the 
wool from of¥ the sheep, and knit their and their children's stock- 
ings. In this respect there has been a great change since George 
III. was king. 

The old spinning wheel has been broken up in kindling wood, 
or stored away up in the garret, with its distafif for the spiders to 
weave their webs upon; and now, in 1896, the madam's duty is 
to boss the hired girl — if she can. Yes, mothers and daughters, 
as well as sires and sons, have changed since George III. was 
king, and Madison was President. At that day silk and broad- 
cloth did not make the man or the woman ; brains and work was 
the passport to station and renown. At that day his nation and 
its lawmakers did not bow to the Golden Calf or the Almighty 
dollar, or mistake the shouts of a mob for the trumpet of fame. 

Many of the former neighbors had departed to their tombs, 
and I was astonished to find their houses, barns, and fields, that 
had once appeared to me to be located at a great distance oflF, 
had apparently been moved during my absence to crowd close 
upon my old farm home, and that the once large fields in which 
I had planted corn and hoed potatoes had contracted their 
borders; all without had contracted its dimensions; not so with 
my chamber room; it had expanded, after being quartered in a 
ship's forecastle of smaller dimensions with one dozen other 



112 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

sailors. The cause of this supposed outside contraction grew 
out of long viewing the expansive ocean, its far-distant sailing 
ships, the vast stretch of mountain ranges, and the apparently 
endless plains. 

I concluded to journey back to New Orleans by land, and view 
its extent. I took the Pennsylvania Railroad to Harrisburg, 
then a canal to Hollidaysburg, where I boarded one of Mr. Re- 
side's stagecoaches and crossed over the mountains to Wheeling, 
Va. At a later date, before railroads were built over those moun- 
tains, I made two more journeys over their wild and rough 
surface and ragged heights. Whilst on one of those journeys I 
reconnoitered the once far-famed battle ground where our 
George Washington, then an under officer, in a battle with the 
Indians, made his name known to the world and fame. Those 
mountains and passes were unknown to the white man until the 
year 1697, when James Mulford (I believe I have the name and 
date properly on my diary) crossed and recrossed the Allegheny 
Mountains' dizzy heights, and reported to the world his explora- 
tions; for this, his daring bravery and hardships, he received a 
title of honor from Queen Mary, who was jointly crowned in 
1695, with William III. her cousin, as Queen of England and 
ruler of America. This I believe to be the first, if not the only 
instance in which a king and queen of Great Britain were 
crowned as joint rulers of that nation. Some of the Indian tribes 
called this native New England adventurer a Yankee. This 
word in their language signified an Englishman. 

On my first mountain journey westward after reaching Wheel- 
ing, I crossed the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to St. 
Louis, Mo., by what was then known as the National Road. 
This grand east and west road was graded and bridged, and a 
large portion of it turnpiked or macadamed by the General Gov- 
ernment. The act creating this grand highway was projected 
and carried through Congress by Henry Clay, and it was long 
known as Clay's National Road. That one great thought and 
act should give Henry Clay an unperishing monument. This 
national work formed a continuous highway from Washington, 



A VISIT TO THE OLD FARM HOME. 1 13 

D. C, to St. Louis, Mo., and was a boon and a guiding star to 
thousands of early pioneers who sought a home in the then Far 
Western wilderness. When our stagecoach arrived at Vandalia 
on the Kaskaskia, which was the then capital of the State of Illi- 
nois, and having learned that the legislature was then in session, 
I concluded to lay over for a few days to view the new country, 
and to see laws made for the new State. Much of the first day's 
debate was on the subject of removing the seat of government 
to Springfield. 

Most of the State was then in its created form, wild and rough 
in beauty, as was its once inhabitant, the wild man Indian; yet 
possessing vast dormant value; and the members of its legislature 
were also rough in appearance, yet it was an august assembly, 
men of worth and giant minds, and competent to lay the founda- 
tion of an empire. Long John Wentworth, who was called the 
" Gentleman from Cook County," took a leading part, and a 
member with what at this day would be called an odd exterior — 
that is, a coonskin cap, wolfskin leggings, and a blue blanket 
overcoat, with a voice like a bugle horn; he had been a captain 
in the Blackhawk War, and his eloquence caused the hall to 
shake and the natives to gaze with astonishment. He was called 
by the presiding officer '' the Gentleman from Jo Davis." The 
sudden word '' Jo " startled me, for it carried me back to the 
days of gloomy Jo. 

I had with me some of the old United States bank bills, signed 
by Nicholas Biddle of Philadelphia, and as I was pleased with the 
Kaskaskia Valley, I gave them to Uncle Sam's land commis- 
sioner at Vandalia for 160 acres of land some five miles south of 
the capital. Wrecking this United States bank was one of Presi- 
dent Jackson's numerous sins, as pictured by Davy Crockett at 
Benton, Miss., in my sailor days. 

I departed from Vandalia for St. Louis by the Mr. Reside's 
stagecoach and the Henry Clay highway, boarded the steamboat 
"Pittsburg" at St. Louis, bound for New Orleans. On the 
second day out we struck a snag, attempted to run the boat on 
shore, but failed to make a landing as the boat filled too quickly 



114 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

and settled down to the river's bottom; the water was over a por- 
tion of the lower deck. One lady passenger was drowned by be- 
ing pushed or stepping off the flooded deck. The boat's chief 
cargo was lead from Galena, 111., and bran and shorts from St. 
Louis mills for cattle feed. The boat was raised from the water 
and put in commission again. I reached New Orleans without 
any occurrence of further note, and went to my work, as then a 
contractor and builder, or building for myself to sell, which pro- 
duced more per month than sailor's w^ages ; but I soon found that 
there was trouble on land as well as on sea; that adverse winds 
there existed. It is impossible to rehearse and rewrite each scene 
in a life's voyage, but as I fully noted within my diary, and pos- 
sess the documents in two acts or occurrences, I must condense 
and place them within this record. 

I had purchased some ground on St. Thomas Street, in the 
suburb Delord, and very soon when my funds were at a 
very low ebb, and when a dollar was as large as a car wheel, 
the city council made a demand on me, through a bill presented 
by an official, for $306.40; a similar demand was also made on 
a large number of my neighbors, but varying in amounts, depend 
ing on the location and extent of possessions. The funds were 
wanted to pay for condemned land for opening or extending 
that street. I felt that the appraisers had awarded the owners 
of the condemned property more than its just value, and had 
assessed Sailor I in excess of my wealthy neighbors. In cases 
of this kind all persons aggrieved had a remedy in the court of 
law, and I resolved to procure counsel and contest the city's 
claim. I called on Lawyer Preston, a veteran at the Bar, stated 
my case to him ; he immediately told me that it was no new ques- 
tion, that he could not promise me any relief, that he should have 
to charge me $50 or $60 to defend the case; that the cheapest 
way out was to let the court give judgment in the case and I pay 
the $306.40; that then no cost would attach, and no lawyer to 
pay, but that he would defend the case if I desired. Poor encour- 
agement, I thought, and called on Lawyer Elwell, a young, 
active lawyer, who said, taking my statement, that he feared he 



A VISIT TO THE OLD FARM HOME. iiS 

could not relieve me, and used the same words that Lawyer Pres- 
ton had used; said he should charge me $45 or $50 to defend me, 
but had great doubts of any benefit to me, and that I had let the 
time run too short to investigate properly, and although I had 
never been in a courthouse but a few hours in my life, I had at 
sea read Blackstone, Chitty on Pleading, and various works on 
the laws of Admiralty. I resolved to defend myself; went im- 
mediately to work, compiled my documentary evidence, and filed 
my answer. The day to render judgment on the commissioner's 
acts, and attach a judgment to each man's property, arrived; two 
of my neighbors who preceded in action had procured first-class 
attorneys. No. i was called to answer; his attorney intro- 
duced evidence, made a long and learned speech, examined pages 
of notes, thumbed over a large basket of well-bound law books 
that his negro slave had toted into the court on his head. The 
veteran city attorney, Lawyer Rail or Rawl, made a long and 
learned speech in behalf of the city, upon which the court said in 
this case, *' I have to render judgment against the defendant, with 
cost." Case No. 2 was called, evidence presented, speeches made 
on both sides with vigor, and when both attorneys were 
exhausted the judge calmly said, " The court decrees against the 
defendant with costs." No. 3, Sailor I, was called to the rack. 
" Where is your attorney? " queried the court. I stated that as 
it was a very plain case, as my answer exhibited, I was willing 
to defend myself. I immediately saw that the city attorney did 
not relish my style of papers or pleading; he found fault, made 
sharp, big talk; I kept in calm water, fired every shot to tell, and 
the judge rose from his seat and announced that the court de- 
creed for the defendant, and taxed the costs to the city. Then the 
city attorney exhibited both passion and grief, and declared that 
under the law and the evidence that I was not entitled to a de- 
cree. This act annulled the entire proceedings of the surveyors, 
commissioners, lawyers, and the court. On the following day the 
city attorney called on me to know what I was willing to pay 
for the benefits that I would receive. I told him that I did not 
desire to take advantage of the situation, that I would pay the 



ii6 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

$306.40 less $150.46, counting per front foot. I paid the $155.94; 
had my original bill receipted by city officials M. O. Hovy and 
Geo. Doane. This bill receipted, with the reduction, now lays 
before me, and is dated February 24, 1840, and says '' notified 
April 27, 1840." The city attorney told me that it would cost 
more than the sum that the city claimed from me to duplicate 
the work. Some time thereafter I was defendent in a building 
suit in which the city was decreed against, and paid the costs; 
Sailor I was attorney. 

In time Sailor I purchased various lots of ground and erected 
for self eleven plain, moderate edifices; two of those were erected 
on ground that possessed, or was mingled with, eventful history. 
It was a portion of a larger tract of land adjacent to the city of 
New Orleans, that the Government of the United States had 
donated to General Lafayette in 1803, ^s a token of respect and 
regard for the general's worthy and arduous services to America 
at a critical period in her days of trial and struggle for life and in- 
dependence. This land, on the death of the general, descended 
to his several heirs. My deed now before me, and dinged by the 
lapse of many years, reads that on the first day of June, in the 
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty, Mr. 
George Louis Gilbert Dumoticr Lafayette, a member of the 
Chamber of Deputies, residing in the city of Paris, in the king- 
dom of France, obtained by inheritance from his father the said 
late Major General Lafayette, in which deed and act of pro- 
curation is included the renunciation of Mme. Frangoise Emilie 
Destutt de Tracy, wife of the said Mr. George Louis Gilbert 
Dumoticr Lafayette. The madame says that she parts with all 
her matrimonial dotal paraphernalia and other rights, mortgages, 
and privileges. My deed recites that said tract of land was 
originally granted to the late Major General Lafayette in pursu- 
ance of the fourth section of an act of Congress passed on the 
third day of March, eighteen hundred and three, entitled ** An 
act to revive and continue in force an act in addition to an act, 
entitled an act regulating the grants of land appropriated for mili- 
tary purposes, for which tract of land a patent was issued by the 



A VISIT TO THE OLD FARM HOME. 117 

President of the United States on the fourth day of July, eighteen 
hundred and twenty-five." 

The pleasing fact to every American is here witnessed that the 
Lafayettes maintain the ascendency, as George, who was named 
after George Washington, was in 1840 a member of the Chamber 
of Deputies, in the then Kingdom of France. 

President John Q. Adams did not keep a full holiday on the 
Fourth of July, 1825, for he on that day signed the patent to per- 
fect Major General Lafayette's land title. When the General 
made his last visit to America in 1824, the year preceding the 
land grant, I with hundreds of others supposed that we were 
doing the general a great favor by almost shaking his right arm 
oflf. At that day he was hale and hearty, but the frosts of time 
had tinged his locks. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

WEIGH ANCHOR AT THE CRESCENT CITy's PORT, TO FIND A PORT 
AND MOORINGS IN THE FAR-DISTANT WEST. 

A FTER I had visited or passed through seven States into Mis- 
souri, the eighth, in 1828, I took an interest in the expansive 
West; I had read of the fertile and valuable lands of the Sacs 
and Foxes that the great chief Black Hawk presided over. At 
that day I considered a St. Louis journal a valuable prize to get 
possession of to know the Western world. As the sand-glass of 
time recorded its hours I collected valuable information ; valuable 
because it gave the thoughts and acts of men throughout the 
world, and exhibited the moving, bustling life within the beehive 
of man. 

In 1832 I learned that the Black Hawk War had broken out 
and with fury raged; that the pale-face desired his hunting 
ground and home. The Indian town of Saukenuk, on Rock 
River, near the now famed Black Hawk Watch Tower, had been 
reduced to ashes, and its three thousand inhabitants, permanent 
and transient, and even the women and children, had been driven 
northward, near the now Wisconsin line, to hardship and suffer- 
ing. Black Hawk and his men bravely fought for their fami- 
lies and their .homes, but heavy guns and trained numbers over- 
powered the brave chief, and on the bloody field of the Bad Ax 
he found his Waterloo, and the women and children were shot 
down in their flight. At the finale, it was not a battle, but a 
massacre. The wise and great chief was taken prisoner, but his 
cup of grief was not full; the unkindest stab was yet to come. 
An under chief, the white man's friend, the talented and great 
orator Keokuk, whom Black Hawk despised, was by the pale- 

118 



WEIGH ANCHOR AT CRESCENT CITY'S PORT. 119 

face pronounced chief of the remnant of the Sacs and Foxes, and 
the once great chief, Black Hawk, who in youth was a companion 
in arms with the renowned Tecumseh, and who was a noted 
brave when but sixteen years of age, was sent to Jefiferson Bar- 
racks in Missouri, where he was confined in a prison for nearly 
one year. He died at his Indian lodge on the Iowa River, in 
October, 1838, the same year that I had made a long inland jour- 
ney to the Far West. 

Through exploration and reading the journals of that day, I 
knew there was ample sea room in the West, as the Indians were 
retreating and also rapidly disappearing from the earth. The 
white man's war and injustice to creation's first man, the Indian, 
within this space of the Western Hemisphere, has not ceased in 
1895. I stop writing to clip the following cruel and fiendish, 
wrong from the Chicago "Tribune" of this day, August 21, 
1895, a well-known and leading journal, which says: 

" The question of what action^should be taken by the Govern- 
ment in connection with the killing of the Bannock Indians in the 
Jackson's Hole country July 13th last, has been referred to the 
Department of Justice. It is understood that a communication 
on the subject was forwarded there this afternoon which recites 
the circumstances in the case and ends with a stronsf recom- 
mendation for an investigation of the matter by the Department 
of Justice. 

" It is understood that the Attorney General was asked to send 
special agents to Jackson's Hole, and that the services of the 
Indian inspectors would be offered as assistants. Agent Teter 
probably will not form part of the company, as he has taken so 
prominent a part in the troubles that the settlers are greatly 
prejudiced against him. 

" It is believed that the arrest of certain settlers by the United 
States authorities has been recommended, so that the case may 
be brought into court and the relative weight of the treaty with 
the Bannocks and of the laws of Wyoming may be judicially 
determined." 



I20 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Their mournful tramp toward their tombs will soon have an 
ending, and in many centuries to come naught will remain to 
speak and prove their once existence save this, my record. 

In June, 1842, I concluded to weigh anchor at the Crescent 
City's port, to find moorings in the West. Although I had never 
been on Black Hawk's war-path or hunting grounds, yet I well 
knew the land and people through the early and later journals, 
and through that source I learned that General Scott had, by 
treaty with the Indians, obtained the land on the western shore 
of the Mississippi without contaminating it with human blood, 
consequently no specters of the slain to walk the earth by night, 
or slaughtered mothers' shrieks to mingle with the thunders of 
the sky. 

I found Davenport on this treaty land, over fifteen hundred 
miles from New Orleans, and midway between the two great 
oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific; a hamlet of a few houses in 
a wilderness. Scenes shifted so rapidly that it was difficult for 
me to picture them on my canvas, or enter the necessary words 
on my diary. Westward did the star of Empire take its way. 

The hamlet now numbers over thirty thousand persons. Com- 
ing time refuses to give me the grandeur of the future. I can 
inform coming time that at no distant day, at some point within 
the latitude of Davenport, west of the Mississippi, will be 
erected this nation's capital. Coming time was willing to say 
that the small corner that it now stands in on the Potomac flats 
does not become a great nation, to say nothing about the ex- 
posed position where two or three ironclads could batter down 
the city 1)efore morning messtime, and with a small land force 
put our President and his Cabinet in irons, and as a ransom re- 
quire the contents of the Treasury to be delivered on board of 
their cruisers as ballast, or perhaps, sack and burn down the 
capital as was once done, and the act tamely submitted to. 








t V .. C V 



GENERAL SANTA ANNA IN i 



835- 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

ARRIVED ON THE FRONTIER SCENES UPON THE BLACK HAWK 

HUNTING GROUNDS. 

\A/HEN I had decided to break camp at New Orleans and 
ship to the Indians' late hunting grounds, I concluded to 
change my occupation. I sold my houses and lots, and invested 
the proceeds in every class, kind, and quality of merchandise that 
I supposed to be in demand on the frontier, and although but a 
sailor I found in due season that I rightly judged the wants of a 
new and distant people. I kept an invoice of purchases up to 
six thousand dollars, when I found the task lengthy and uninter- 
esting, and dropped it out of my diary; all I entered on my diary 
was that the veteran Captain Woods of the upper Mississippi 
River steamboat " Agnes " said that it was the greatest bulk, the 
heaviest tonnage, and largest freightbill that he had handled 
for any one shipper on one voyage during his career as captain 
and owner of steamboats. 

On July 4, 1842, the '' Agnes " made a landing on the Iowa 
shore at the town of Rockingham, five miles west of Davenport, 
to land some goods, and to take on a few cords of wood to ascend 
the Rock Island Rapids. No coal was used at that day on boats, 
and it required extra power to pass over the thirteen miles of up 
grade, previous to the Government's betterment of those rapids. 
Rockingham was at that day the competitor of Davenport for 
the ascendency. I considered life too short to stand by idle and 
see freight discharged and wood stored on board by useful men; 
consequently I bid Captain Woods " Good-day," went on shore 
to tramp a portion of a sandy road by the river's windings to 
Davenport, to find quarters for my wife and child, and a store- 
room. I found the then new Le Claire House fit for an emperor. 



12 2 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

I rented a two-story brick store with basement from a Mr. Thor- 
ington, father of Congressman and foreign consul James Thor- 
ington, and a warehouse from a Mr. Macklot; purchased a broom 
and had the store swept out by self, and drays on hand to haul 
the goods before the steamer arrived. By outstripping the 
steamboat, I added not less than one hour to my business life. 
I opened store next morning the best I could; had a big rush of 
customers, and soon put goods down to twenty per cent., and 
produce up to fifteen per cent., an act that did not offend the 
community. Within ten days I purchased a lot 128 X 150 feet, 
northeast corner of Rock Island and Second streets, in Daven- 
port, to intercept the Pleasant Valley trade, which was the main 
country trade at that day, and immediately went to work and 
completed by October 10, 1842, the two-story brick building 
now on that corner, where it has stood fifty-four years, and it 
has a healthy life of fifty-four more years, notwithstanding that 
brick buildings erected the same year, 1842, have been con- 
demned by the city and torn down; two of those condemned 
buildings stood on Front Street north of the Packet Company's 
building, and I erected the grand stone structure now occupied 
by Mr. J. R. Nutting; that I erected in 1854, and a like structure 
that I erected in 1871 west of it on Front Street and Bridge 
Avenue; both have yet a healthy life of many years over a cen- 
tury. I make mention of this to exhibit the utility of building 
knowledge. The Rock Island and Second streets' two-story 
brick building of 1842, with one-fourth of the original ground, 
was lately purchased by Mr. H. Frahm for five thousand dollars. 
At the same time that I erected the last mentioned building I 
built a warehouse east of it, and also the three small dwellings 
on Rock Island Street north of it, as homes for my coopers who 
worked for me and made pork barrels, as I packed pork quite ex- 
tensively for that day; each of the three tenants worked out the 
price of their house and lots, besides living well, and owned a 
cozy home; if every workman would do the same no poor fund 
or poor house would be wanted, and a large number of my work- 
men did the same; two of them obtained large possessions, all 



ARRIVED ON THE FRONTIER. 123 

earned and purchased through Sailor I, and those men received 
honorable mention in the report of a Congressional Committee. 
I have to mention those facts, as they are connected with a life's 
voyage. 

Iowa's soil is widely known for its fertility, and I found all 
products of the soil in abundance, and much cheaper in Iowa than 
on the farms within the Southern or Eastern States, but over 
1500 miles by the Mississippi to New Orleans, and a greater 
distance to the East added heavily to the cost. Early in October, 
1842, I place4 $1600 worth of this produce — consisting of wheat, 
potatoes, and onions — on board of a steamboat for the New 
Orleans market, all of splendid quality. The boat was de- 
layed, the warm Southern weather affected tne onions and po- 
tatoes, the price of wheat was down, and in due season I received 
a request for $13.60 to pay balance of charges, which I remitted. 
At this same period I was building a large flatboat to make an 
additional shipment of potatoes and onions. The boat was 
freighted; Captain Anderson, a river captain, delayed in clear- 
ing, and after a few days on the voyage cold weather set in, and 
ice commenced to form, and the boat had to tie up at a lonely 
island where most of the cargo perished, and I never received one 
cent for boat or freight — a total loss of boat, produce, and out- 
fit of very near $2000, a large loss at that day, and closely follow- 
ing my steamboat loss; and I had through hard work procured 
the money, for I never received a gift of one dollar. True, I in- 
herited an interest in the old farm home, with large additions, 
but I desired to paddle my own canoe, so I immediately deeded 
all my portion to my brothers, sisters, and brothers-in-law, free 
of cost. This flatboat was the first that was ever built and 
freighted in Iowa. Mr. D. P. McKown was supercargo of the 
" Eliza," and on the 25th of January, 1888, he made a report of 
his voyage from his log, to the world, through a historical jour- 
nal of Davenport, la., which said report I here give to confirm 
my crippled statements. 



124 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 



M KOWN S WINTER. 

" This One Is Ethereal Mildness Compared With It — The Winter 
of Winters 45 Years Ago — Its Weeks of Temperature 2f to ^8° 
belozv Zero — How Mr. McKown Knows — Set in on the lyth 
Day of November and Let up on the 20th of April — The Old 
Settler Ahead. 

'* *Yoii believe the climate is changing! What makes you 
think so? Because this is such a severe winter! .AH nonsense. 
I want to tell you that this winter is ethereal mildness compared 
with a winter we had in old times. Old settler's brag! Not a 
bit of brag about it. What I tell you is a fact.' 

" The speaker was D. P. McKown, the secretary of the Scott 
County Pioneer Settlers' Association, who has lived in Davenport 
nearly fifty years. 

'' ' It was the winter of 1842-43, and I know all about it, for I 
was in a fix that made it almost unendurable, and I counted every 
one of its tedious days, looking for a let-up every hour which 
never came until after six long months had passed. Talk about 
cold weather hanging on — why, if this region had been as 
thickly populated then as it is now, many people would have 
perished. It was the coldest winter ever known in this Mississ- 
ippi Valley by white men. I will tell you how it was with me, 
and you will see why my memory of it is so clear.' 

** And Mr. McKown entered upon a graphic story of his ex- 
perience in that historic winter of 1842-43. 

" * A. C. Fulton was then, as he is now, though forty-five years 
older, one of the most enterprising men in Davenport. He had 
a large flatboat built in October, '42, by a carpenter named 
Charlie Anderson, who named the boat ** Eliza," in honor of a 
young lady in the village to whom he was engaged. In Novem- 
ber Mr. Fulton loaded that boat with onions, and intended the 
cargo for the New Orleans market. The crew consisted of Cap- 
tain John Anderson, Charlie Anderson (no relation to each 
other), John McCloskey, a man named King and myself. The 



ARRIVED ON THE FRONTIER. 125 

cargo and boat cost Mr. Fulton eighteen hundred dollars. We 
set sail from Davenport on the 17th day of November, with beau- 
tiful weather prevailing. Next day it became cool. The water 
was low, and it was hard boating, I tell you, for ice was forming 
fast. The third day we tied up to Otter Island, five miles above 
Burlington, to wait for a thaw. It was frightfully cold — away 
below zero, and the river was soon solid ice. Well, sir, we stayed 
there all winter. We lived on onions and pork — took along pork 
as part of our provisions. All the drink we had beside water was 
a decoction from sarsaparilla root which was dug from under the 
snow — and it thinned our blood so that it almost killed us. The 
man who owned Otter Island hired us to chop cord wood at 37J 
cents per day and take it in orders on a store in Burlington. 
Money was very scarce. We could get no groceries — sugar, tea, 
coffee, flour, and the like — nothing but cornmeal, whisky, pow- 
der, and dry goods. The only flour we had was ten pounds 
which our employer bought us for Christmas dinner. Oh, that 
was a dinner! The Sunday before Christmas the boys shot a 
wild turkey, a couple of pheasants, and three or four hares. 
There was no finer dinner in the land. We had plenty of good 
whisky. It was a jolly day.' 

" ' But you are forgetting the temperature, Mr. McKown. 
How cold was it? ' 

One of us used to go down to Burlington every little while. 
There was a thermometer outside a store there, and it used to 
register 2^ to ^8 degrees belozv zero! Day after day, week after 
week, the mercury was that low. Everybody said it was the 
coldest winter ever known here. I know myself there has been 
nothing like it since. I forgot to tell you one discovery we made. 
We found two bee trees. One was four feet in diameter, but 
there wasn't a pound of honey in it. The other was eighteen 
inches in diameter, a sycamore, and we took seventy pounds of 
honey from that tree. How about the break-up? Well, sir, there 
was no break-up until the middle of April. We didn't get away 
from that island until the 25th of April. Why, on the 17th of 
April the ice bridge at Davenport was still solid enough for 



126 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

teams. We got into St. Louis on the 6th day of May, seven 
months after leaving Davenport. There we had more bad luck. 
We ran afoul of a wood flat and sunk it. The man sued us for 
damages; we beat him in court, but we had our lawyer's fee to 
pay. We sold flatboat and onions at auction. The onions were 
spoiled because of a leak that was sprung in the hull when we lay 
at Otter Island. The net proceeds, after paying the lawyer and 
the auctioneer, were eighty-four dollars. That sum we divided 
among the crew, and we separated. T went to Cincinnati. Mr. 
Fulton came down to St. Louis to meet us, laughed at our story, 
and said we had done as well as we could, but he never went near 
the boat or its cargo. Only three of the crew stayed with it all 
winter — Charlie Anderson, McCloskey, and myself. Every one 
of the original crew excepting myself is dead now. McCloskey 
was the last — he died in Camanche three years ago. 

" * Grumble and brag about this winter, will you? Why, if the 
people had an idea it would last until the middle of April, lots of 
them would go crazy. I tell you it is a pretty nice winter.* 

" And Mr. McKown turned from his astonished listeners to an 
insurance customer." 

As a historical fact worthy of note, I know that there has not 
been as long and as severely cold a winter during fifty-two win- 
ters since that winter of 1842. Ice in the slack water of the Miss- 
issippi froze to the depth of nearly three feet; pond ice of four 
feet was reported. 

This same winter of 1842 Sailor I was lost and adrift near three 
days on the vast and bleak prairie ocean. 

During the winters of 1842 and 1843 several hundred Sac and 
Fox Indians camped within the now incorporated limits of the 
city of Davenport, and within three-quarters of a mile of the now 
City Hall. They were peaceable and committed no depreda- 
tions and were more orderly than any like number of whites in 
camp that T ever saw, and I have seen many. Both men and 
women made small purchases at my store. Treat the Indian with 
kindness and he will return kindness, 



ARRIVED ON THE FRONTIER. 127 

Whilst I have the commercial page of my diary before me, I 
must say that, in 1844, I concluded to try the dry-goods trade 
in Philadelphia; rented 28 South Second Street, the then famed 
dry-goods market of the Quaker City; I was nextdoor neighbor 
to the well-known Quaker dry-goods king of that day, Mr. Jesse 
Sharpless. I soon ascertained that a sailor could purchase 
goods, but that he could not compel the community to do the 
same. I wasted money, then divided my stock between Daven- 
port, la., and General Grant's town, Galena, 111., then a rich lead- 
mining region. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

SCENES AND ACTS ON THE WESTERN FRONTIER. 

\ A/HEN a sailor or a frontier settler spins a yarn of the dis- 
tant past, he should, if possible, have in his possession 
dates and pages of records and documentary or personal cor- 
roborating testimony, as many adventurers during their voyage 
of life have passed through scenes and acts more romantic and 
more astonishing than any fiction ever penned by the most 
learned within fiction's world. Knowing this situation, Sailor 
I did in due season store away a stock of the corroborative. 

In time I desired to abandon the frontier general merchan- 
dise trade, sold all my odds and ends in bulk to Messrs. Burrows 
and Prettyman, for the sum of $4500. 

At that period there was not a flour mill in Davenport, and 
but one pair of burrs to grind grain in Scott County; they were 
located at Rockingham, on the river, and they were on the re- 
pair or sick list full half the time. The best quality of wheat 
existed in great abundance, yet, at some periods, not a single 
sack or barrel of flour could be purchased. The chief supply of 
flour was from' a grinding mill in the upper loft of a saw mill in 
Moline, 111., and its single pair of French burr stones were 
for a time the only grinding power in Rock Island County, Illi- 
nois, and vv'hen the ice was forming or running in the Mississippi 
River Iowa was deprived of her flour and cornmeal, and no 
money could procure it, and several teams broke through the 
ice, and the horses were drowned. 

In 1839 a Mr. Davis erected an 18 X 22 feet log mill on Crow 
Creek, near the river road, and ground wheat and corn, but a 
freshet in the fall of 1840 carried away his mill dam. I pur- 
chased this pioneer mill, the first water-power mill erected in 

128 



SCENES AND ACTS ON WESTERN FRONTIER. 129 

Iowa, with its twenty-one acres of land, without seeing it, but 
when I investigated the situation, I found the mill to be a wreck, 
without a sufficiency of water. Its once fair supply had been 
reduced through cutting the timber, pasturing, cutting the grass, 
plowing and ditching the land along its borders. The plowing 
and cultivating the land caused it to absorb the rains and melt- 
ing snows, and the ditching caused the water to immediately 
rush off in a large volume. Its value as a mill had departed, 
and I split up the walnut logs of which it was built into fence 
rails. My title to the mill and land is recorded in book C of Land 
Deeds at page 361, Scott County, Iowa. 

When the enterprising Mr. Davis had his mill dam and walnut 
log mill built, he had no fifty dollars to purchase a set of French 
burr mill stones, but necessity, the mother of invention, called on 
him, and he went to the river's shore, selected two bluish, rough, 
ill-shaped bowlder stones of adamantine hardness ; resolution was 
his constant companion, and with sledge, chisel, hammer, and 
muscle he metamorphosed them into an upper and a nether 
grinding stone. 

I have known pale-visaged men with sunken eyes and white 
tapering fingers, and who could not splice a rope or furl a sail, 
claim that those bowlders, some of which will girth eighty feet, 
were used by the glaciers as footballs to be kicked and pushed 
over hill and dale, and left as they are scattered round. I doubt 
if those theorists ever communed with Neptune on the sea, or 
Minerva or Isis on the land, not even in a dream a^ Sailor I have 
done, who at the time of this not unfortunate, but fortunate oc- 
currence took place, as they could evidence give, that those 
bowlders dropped from planets that in their course missed stays 
and collided with other worlds, and toppled their composition of 
earth, rock, trees, vegetation, lakes, and rivers overboard to scat- 
ter on this globe, after half a century's journey through space, to 
now form our bowlders and our mines of coal. 

I gave those once rugged, shapeless bowlders to a farmer to 
use in a horse-power mill; they proved to be too heavy for his 
horse power, and he ascertained that he could not run a mill by 



I30 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

the force of circumstances, and continued his coffee-mill grinder, 
and sold the bowlder millstone to a Mr. Thomas Wood to grind 
mash for a whisky distillery on the slough at the west end of 
Davenport. The distillery has long departed, but the residents 
there claim that the perturbed spirits of the delirium tremens' 
victims now hold their revels and make night hideous on that 
slough. 

Whilst on the frontier milling and water-power subject, I de- 
sire to place on record two additional experiences in that line, 
without regard to their merits, but because they are entered 
within a life's voyage. 

In the month of July, 1842, I made a preliminary examination 
of the Rock Island or Upper Rapids of the Mississippi River. 
I found that a vast water power, equal to that of Lowell, existed 
and awaited development. I immediately concluded to enter on 
the task; I knew it was but a question of genius and dollars; the 
dollar side of the question was discouraging, yet I decided to em- 
bark in the doubtful, hoping for aid after a start was made and 
the situation developed, and no aid appeared; it passed me on the 
right and on the left. Time rolled on, and in 1893, this water- 
power question, as it had frequently done, came before the com- 
munity through Iowa's historical journal, the Davenport " Demo- 
crat," and to place this water-power question on its proper course 
in history, I furnished that journal with my acts from my diary, 
which reads as follows: 



" A BIT OF HISTORY. 

" When flic Work Commenced on the Water Power — A Veteran Resi- 
dent Writes Reminiscences as to the Development of a Flan "a'Jiich 
Still Interests the Citizens of this Locality. 

" Some time ago this paper published some remarks of Hon. 
Hiram Price on the rapids water power. His recollection goes 
back many years, but he is antedated by the old resident, A. C. 
Fulton, who tells the beginning of work on the water-power pro- 



SCENES AND ACTS ON WESTERN FRONTIER. 131 

ject which has already engrossed the attention of two genera- 
tions and bids fair to interest another before the immense force 
now going to waste is harnessed and utilized. The interesting 
communication is as follows: 

" ' To the Editor of " The Democrat " : Vast space has been 
used in theory on the early history of Davenport, whilst the facts 
exist.' Fact possesses substance, theory is but a shadow. The 
equator and the north pole are not placed more widely asunder. 
The Mississippi water-power project is one of the themes. The 
Business Men's Association and individuals have for over fifty 
years introduced theory on this water-power subject, its sup- 
posed birth and parentage. Now, lately comes Hiram Price, 
who said, '' Almost as soon as I struck the county, the water- 
power scheme was here. The proposition to control the rapids 
of the Mississippi for power-purposes was as old as the place. 
Very roseate were the dreams of the oldtime boomers of the 
idea." Who were the boomers? Let us come down to facts 
and hard pan. We must write short. The intelligent readers 
understand short. It is a hardship, a great hardship to name 
self, but history and science demand the sacrifice. We, that is 
I, passed happy days on the water. On reaching the interior I 
resolved to procure a water power. On July 15, 1842, I set out 
to reconnoiter the upper rapids of the Mississippi River. The 
eye of a civil and military engineer immediately told me that a 
water power of no mean proportions lay before me, and I re- 
solved then and there, on the Mississippi's wild and rugged bank, 
to harness and work it if possible. I immediately procured 
teams, provisions, and a cook, to camp out, and took to my 
assistance the renowned civil engineer, Mr. Gibbons of the then 
State works of Illinois, and at an expense of over $400, found we 
had a head and fall of over eleven feet from our bench stake at 
Stubb's eddy, where the Lindsay & Phelps mill now stands. My 
modus operandi was to run a dam or marine wall up the river 
from Sycamore chain, to take in all the fall, then to open an 80- 
foot canal to Smith's or Fulton's island and use the slough as a 
portion of the canal and operate the first works at the mouth of 



132 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Spencer's creek, then extend the canal, and create a pond to 
secure a head of water at East Davenport. To accompHsh this, 
I purchased the island in the river. See county records of 
October ii, 1842, $100 paid. See book C, page 137, $600 paid 
to I. Vanansdoll. See Ira F. Smith, canal ground deed, 100 feet 
in width through his farm, book C, page 452, paid $46.50. See 
William Conrow, canal deed, book C, page 454, paid $12.10. See 
A. W. Finley, book E, page 36, paid $400. See William Crosson 
and other deeds. 

Not a single dollar would a citizen of the city or county risk 
in the water power. All said their prayers were with me. Suits 
of great interest growing out of my canal right of way purchases 
have been before our courts. Too long to write. See court 
records. 

Good Mr. Price is sure that the sum of $200,000 or $300,- 
000 properly handled will start the water power. My estimate 
for excavating all the earth or alluvial of an 80-foot canal was 
$11,000 or $12,000. Tlie possession of some rock on the line I 
considered to be an advantage, as this would be required at vari- 
ous points. I did not expect to use picks and shovels, but raise 
a head of water at Sycamore chain, dig a small ditch, and let the 
mighty Mississippi excavate or wash out my canal whilst I slept. 
To know the nature of the task, I took soundings every 150 feet 
along the line. I got up a self-propelling and self-com- 
manding dredge boat to dredge the banks where neces- 
sary. The whole boat consisted of the wheel and two 
posts or anchors. It was a cylinder, propelled by the 
water of the ditch passing through it. They could be 
cheaply constructed and extend from thirty feet up to or over 
one hundred feet in length and number many. One was tested 
on the rapids of the river and operated well. I sold the upper 
section of my canal grounds, surveys, estimates, and right of way, 
which was perfect, to New York parties, with the express under- 
standing that the work should continue to completion. See 
records. Their banker failed. A water power now can never, 
never be created as it could have been at that period. 



SCENES AND ACTS ON WESTERN FRONTIER. 133 

*' * At and previous to this same time, with two others, I was 
placing a dam across the Wapsipinicon River, and erecting a 
flouring mill in Buchanan County, near the Indian reserve line of 
1837, where now rest thrilling occurrences of that day that would 
eclipse those of the Black Hills or Oklahoma. Material not for 
a Dickens or a Cooper, but for a Prentice or a Greeley, in their 
early days. This was at such an early territorial period that the 
enterprising Mr. J. M. D. Burrows, within his book, " Fifty Years 
in Iowa," attempts to cast a doubt on the then herculean under- 
taking. Facts, history, no theory, and yet the most important, 
I leave to oblivion. 

" ' Yours, 

'' ' A. C. Fulton. 

*'* Davenport, July 15, 1893.' 

" It will be noted that it was fifty-one years ago yesterday since 
the first attempt was made to find the possibilities of the power 
of the upper rapids." 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE WORK TO MAKE A WORLD THE WILD GIRL OF THE 

THOUSAND ISLES THE SLAVESHIP AND AFRICAN PRINCE. 

IOWA had her Black Hills and her Oklahoma frontier days, 
wherein rest thrilling occurrences of that period, occurrences 
that would eclipse the most extravagant fiction ever penned by 
man. Love and law, powder and diplomacy, revenge and un- 
timely graves, and then the struggle to build up a finished world 
in a wilderness; herein comes the tug of manly war, a herculean 
task, constantly surrounded by adversity. Those who strut the 
streets in full dress little know the task and care necessary to pro- 
tect naked infancy. 

Then soon came upon the Indian trail the wonders of genius, 
and the strides of intellectual advancement to be made known to 
the world through Iowa's James Harlan and William B. Allison. 

I had been on the frontier just two weeks when a small, lithe 
adventurer, a genuine specimen of the frontier stripe, in every 
word and in every action, called on me; he said his name was 
Lambert; that he was born, reared, and educated in the big pot- 
ash timber region of Northern New York; that he had purchased 
from William Bennett a half interest in a valuable water-power 
claim on the falls of the Wapsipinicon River in Buchanan 
County, la., and they desired to get an advance in goods and 
money on the prospective water and land, when the land came 
into market; or they would sell a half interest to someone to aid 
them; that Mr. Bennett had no money, but that he had a bunch 
of cattle that would bring money at the end of the grass season; 
that the cattle were picking up rapidly on the abundance of prairie 
grass; that he himself had a little money, but not sufficient to 
start the improvement on, and that he had authority to make a 
trade of a half interest of the claim or get goods and money; that 

• «34 



THEjWORK TO MAKE A WORLD. 135 

he had tried to get aid at Dubuque but failed; that the property 
possessed large value, and that Mr. Bennett named the coming 
city Quasqueton. On his word, without writings or contract or 
security, except verbal, I furnished Bennett and Lambert $240 
in building, hardware, and other goods and money, and also 
ordered from St. Louis bolting cloths and machinery in a small 
line. 

At that period sailors' and frontier settlers' word was good 
for all they possessed, and Mr. Lambert gave his word that I 
should be the half owner in the Buchanan County Water Power 
and land, or get my money back, if I would furnish one-half of 
the sum necessary to develop the water power, and one-half to 
make the land purchase, when it came into market. The $240 
advanced and the machinery I purchased was called a large sum 
at that day, when we had no banks save sand banks and river 
banks, and our -chief currency was hides, tallow, wild game, 
horses, cattle, and farm products. 

Mr. W. Bennett was a native of Maine, and the first settler in 
Delaware County, Iowa, as well as the first settler in Bu- 
chanan County, Iowa, where he built his log house on the site 
of Quasqueton. He, with two hired men, in February, 1842, 
erected the edifice, and completed it and a cow stable in nine 
days, and moved into it during the coming month of March, 
1842. He was a natural genius and an untiring worker, such as 
explore the seas, and the land, and extend civilization, and give 
the finish to a crude world. 

In October, 1842, Bennett and I visited the now site of Inde- 
pendence. Not a white man's footprint there appeared; we 
already possessed a splendid location, but we desired all the 
earth, and would have taken possession of that portion of it, and 
we. were well prepared for the undertaking, for we had a rifle and 
ammunition, an ax, and fully two days' rations of corned beef 
and corn bread, and herds and flocks of game in sight; an abun- 
dance of pure water rushing over the Wapsipinicon's falls, and 
a tin cup to drink it with ; what more could mortal man in reason 
desire? Yet we would have then and there seized upon and 



136 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

taken legal possession of the splendid town site, but upon recon- 
noitering the surroundings, we discovered it to be forbidden 
fruit. It was located on the west side of the Indian line of 1837, 
and at that very hour the smoke of the camp fires of the good and 
peaceable Sacs and Foxes (excepting three or four drunken ones) 
could be seen slowly rising above the timber, not over a mile from 
us on the western side of the river. 

In those frontier days hope and ambition were at a premium; 
no such word as fail was then known; energy and ceaseless ac- 
tivity were the password. A world was to be founded for the 
home of future millions, and but a few to perform the task; not 
a mere animal task of bone and sinew, but also the task to 
endeavor to improve and pass down to coming generations the 
philosophy and soul-stirring intellect created over two thousand 
years now past and gone, by the never dying Cicero, Plato, and 
the great Socrates, who brought down philosophy from the 
heavens to the earth. 

In 1847 Rufus Clark, one of the citizens of our Quasqueton, 
five years after we had camped one night on the town site of 
Independence, erected a log house and purchased the land from 
Uncle Sam, in connection with a citizen of Wisconsin. Mr. 
Clark was a trapper, a hunter, and a fisherman, and all Quasque- 
ton was astonished when he trapped a piece of land, and lived in 
a house with a chimney, something that he had always claimed 
to be an unnecessary luxury. 

On my first entry into Buchanan County, on July 28, 1842, I 
found the population of the county to number nine persons. 
Two-thirds of the number was quartered in Mr. Bennett's log 
house. 

On August 5th of the same year (1842) the census taken by 
Mr. Bennett gave the county a population of fifteen persons, self 
included, which exhibited an increase. 

Some forty acres of land had been broken and put under culti- 
vation, consisting of sod corn, oats, potatoes, and garden vege- 
tables, all of which looked remarkably well for a raw sward crop. 

The work on the Quasqueton dam and mill became known 



, THE WORK TO MAKE A WORLD. 137 

abroad, and on November 15, 1842, the census then taken by us 
placed the population of the county at twenty-two, Sailor I in- 
cluded, and which now, in 1897, continues to increase. 

Those pioneers who endured the perils and hardships of a fron- 
tier life, to establish civilization in an unknown wilderness, a 
noble, enterprising class of men, are entitled to monuments 
towering far above those of kings and emperors who are acci- 
dentally born to station and to greatness, with no real, no true 
merit in their composition; yet they are entitled to wear a diadem. 

The cold of fifty-five winters and the heat of fifty-five summers 
have since that day visited Iowa, and been recorded on the tablet 
of time; yet memory places the face of, the then, every resident 
of Buchanan County with moving eyes plainly before me, yet 
they have all, yes all, departed. Rest, noble twenty-one! and 
may all delinquencies be placed in the graves with the dead, and 
all virtues remain to live and grow, and be remembered; and may 
the angels of the adventurer and the enterprising watch over you ! 

With long and wearisome labor we, beaver like, knit together 
a vast chain of logs, brush, stone, and earth, to form a barrier to 
the turbulent waters of the Wapsipinicon River. Whilst thus 
engaged, fourteen hours of the twenty-four, with water-soaked 
garments, bright visions of wealth and greatness floated con- 
stantly before us. There were no eight-hour sluggards then as 
now, in 1897, to cripple usefulness and murder time. 

We had erected a warehouse and a blacksmith's shop, and if 
ever mortal men were proud of their possessions, then we were 
the proud ones spoken of. We possessed a splendid water 
power, and an unsurpassed site for a vast and unbounded city, 
in the center of an expansive district, a healthy location unsur- 
passed for its fertility, and we had every hope of being the found- 
ers of the metropolis of the great W^est; yet well we knew that 
untiring energy and sleepless exertion were absolutely necessary, 
and that hardship, toil, and privations were to be encountered on 
all sides. We expected storms and adverse winds; yet we re- 
solved to manfully face the inevitable. 

We had not self alone in view, but the interests and welfare 



138 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

of others, and that of a coming people when we should be blotted 
from off the earth, and truly, as I said, Iowa had her Black Hills 
and her Oklahoma days. 

I must here take from my diary the adventures and the life 
and death of one of our workmen on our frontier mill, poor un- 
fortunate Oscar Day. Mr. Day was a native of Michigan, born 
and reared near the headwaters of Lake Huron. To create a 
future home he had taken up a claim of 160 acres of splendid 
prairie land, within one mile of Quasqueton, and had erected a 
16 X 18 feet, one-roomed log house on his land; the floor was 
also formed of logs split through the center and the flat sides 
turned upwards to form a floor to walk on. Mr. Day had left his 
work and house for a few days to go to near Dubuque and see 
his inamorata, a worthy farmer's daughter, who was to be the 
mistress of the domicile when the finish had been placed upon it, 
but alas! when he returned a man from the Michigan woods, and 
known as *' Big Bill," a noted claim jumper, with his man Fri- 
day, had taken possession of his house, and had put a prairie 
grass roof on his unfinished stable for their horses. When Mr. 
Day approached his home they ordered him to make tracks, or 
accept the contents of their rifles. Mr. Day saw that they had 
slipped the chunking between the logs to make loop-holes to fire 
through, and had made a fort of his house in which two men 
could shoot down a dozen assailants. Mr. Day was not of the 
class who turn their left check when smitten on the right; he was 
unwilling to submit tamely to the great wrong. His employers 
advised no hasty action and risk of life, and pledged themselves 
to see him placed in possession of his property, and they had 
even planned to form a breastwork on their home-made log 
w^agon, and run it on the first dark night close in contact with 
Big Bill's fort, and carry the fort by strategy, but to this propo- 
sition Oscar protested, claiming that it would to him be a lasting 
disgrace, and he \vith his rifle made many journeys to recon- 
noiter near his home; at length he saw Big Bill at a distance from 
his stolen quarters, endeavoring to get a telling shot at a large 
elk, well known as the lone elk of Buchanan County, for it was 



THE WORK TO MAKE A WORLD. . I39 

the last of its herd, which had numbered hundreds. It had been 
pursued and shot at by dozens of both whites and Indians, for 
months and years, but it had, through cunning, speed, and good 
generalship, escaped to be shot at again. 

Mr. Day saw the lone elk making its enormous leaps toward 
the upper timber of the Wapsipinicon, and waited Big Bill's re- 
turn; vvhen within hailing distance, some two hundred yards off. 
Mr. Day shouted to Bill to know if he would surrender the house 
immediately. His reply in a hoarse voice was, " No, never! I 
have that claim for sale." Both instantly raised their rifles and 
fired. Day fell, shot through the heart. The whole proceeding 
was witnessed by a citizen of Quasqueton, who was on his way 
to his land claim with his wagon. Big Bill slowly took his way 
to the cabin, and the teamster hastened to Quasqueton to report 
the tragedy. The teamster had also been watching Big Bill 
when endeavoring to shoot the lone elk. The corpse was 
brought in and placed in our warehouse; two of the men slept in 
that building; they said that they were good friends of Oscar's, 
yet they thought Oscar might not want them to sleep so near 
to him. There was not a vacant room, nor was there a coffin or 
boards to make a coffin within Buchanan County. Some pro- 
posed to wrap him in a blanket. Mr. Lambert suggested to 
utilize two old flour barrels, one over the head and one over the 
feet, but measurement proved them to be too short; but Mr. Ben- 
nett, as ever, came to the rescue. We had an old 15-feet disabled 
Indian bark canoe; we cut 6 feet 6 inches off the bow, and 6 feet 
9 inches of¥ the stern ; the larger or stern end we sprung over the 
smaller or bow end, like unto the lid of a pasteboard box. We 
had a dry-goods box that I had shipped goods in, and a portion of 
it made the coffin head, the foot being already closed; some raw- 
hide straps, bound around the ancient canoe, formed a casket 
fit for an emperor. As there was no storage for poor Oscar, and 
night had approached, we placed his remains beneath the virgin 
turf of Buchanan County, in the mellow light of the harvest 
moon, and with suppressed tears all wished him a pleasant jour- 
ney to the happy hunting ground where no land jumpers rove. 



140 A LIFE'S VOYAGn.. 

This inland funeral wafted my memory back to the ocean burial 
of the mysterious girl and the pirate schooner of the Bahamas; 
yet we had no coral wreaths, no Bible John to offer up a prayer 
to the great Supreme. 

Within those two short eventful days upon the ocean and the 
frontier prairie tragic scenes, equal in magnitude to the average 
ordinary man's life journey, rapidly passed before me. Lawless- 
ness and revenge came together, twins in life and in death, and 
as cruel as the grave. 

The next morning the small boy volunteered to go alone and 
reconnoiter the desperados' quarters, and see if the murderer and 
his man were yet in possession of the house and stable. He 
soon returned to say that both had deserted. A trail gave posi- 
tive evidence that they had gone southeast toward the Mississ- 
ippi River early the previous evening. Within one month word 
arrived from Camanche, la., that Big Bill had died at that village 
from a rifle ball passing through him; that when the shot was 
fired Bill stood on an elevation, and the ball entered his left side 
below his armpit and passed through the muscular tissues near 
the angle of the scapula, and came out of his back, close to his 
left shoulder blade, and death was the result of the inflicted 
wound; that for some days his doctor had not considered 
the wound at all dangerous. The day previous to his death Bill 
told his doctor and a Mr. Bigelow, said to be a counterfeiter, at 
whose house he died, that he had received the wound at Quas- 
queton, la., and that he had shot his assailant dead and had seen 
him moved after death; that he was then sorry that he had shot 
the man. 

Upon the news of the cruel death of Oscar reaching the farm- 
er's daughter, his affianced, she became insane, and took to strict 
silence in her room, never to speak, but constantly to gaze into 
vacancy, up to the day previous to her death, when she said to 
her parents that on the morrow^ morning, at nine o'clock, she 
should leave home to go to Quasqueton to see her Oscar. Her 
words were not heeded until the Yankee wooden clock of the 
kitchen told nine the next morning, when her mother sprang 



THE WORK TO MAKE A WORLD. 141 

from her seat and entered her room to witness her last gasp of 
life. 

One incident in connection with the lone elk I must transfer 
from my diary. It was noonday, and all hands were enjoying 
their mess, when the only small boy in the county, a youth of 
eight years and seven months, and who within a year thereafter 
departed from this life, rushed wildly forward, exclaiming, " The 
Indians are coming to fight us; give me a gun, quick, give me a 
gun! " Within five minutes every man and one woman had a 
rifle in their hands, but soon it Avas evident that the Indians were 
not hostiles; there were eight of them, all mounted. They 
stated that the lone elk was northeastward, near at hand, and 
they requested permission to shoot it on the white man's side 
of the Indian line. All immediately said yes except Mr. Lambert, 
who was a joker, and he said he objected because it was not an 
elk but a spirit of the hundreds of elks that they had slaughtered, 
and that it was folly to attempt to shoot it. This made some of 
the Indians look sad, but at the word from Mr. Bennett to hasten 
in pursuit of the elk, they spread out to the right and to the left, 
two and two, and speeded away as the winds, and the small boy 
went on the jump after them to see and know. Two shots were 
heard, which told us the elk was there. After hours the small 
boy returned and said, " Them Indians could never kill his elk." 
When asked if the Indians, when he last saw them, were bunched 
up or scattered, he said, " neither," that they were " stretched 
out straight like his mother's grapevine clothesline." 

On that day of the phantom-elk chase occurred an arrival that 
caused an upheaving and a flow of hot lava within Buchanan 
County. The ever reliable small bo}^ also reported that two 
strangers in a covered wagon, with two nice black horses before 
it, and two lighter horses behind it, stopped to see the Indians 
after his elk. One of them, the boy said, was a woman or a girl, 
he knew not which; she was driving the team and asked 
him the name of the tribe of Indians to which the hunters be- 
longed. He told her the Sacs. She said all Indians were her 
friends; then she said that she could shoot that elk, but he would 



142 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

bet his boots she could not. " That woman does not belong 
around here. I never saw the like of her around here," and he 
said that before he was done looking at her, she whipped up and 
started off. 

During the following forenoon the Indian hunters returned 
to cross the ford to reach their camp; they had three wild turkeys, 
about one dozen prairie chickens, and a prairie wolf, but no lone 
elk, and almost all of them were inclined to believe that there was 
some truth in Mr. Lambert's phantom yarn. 

On the following day after the Indian elk chase — it was Sunday 
— a well-built and good-loking strange man, full six feet in 
height, with dark piercing eyes and a few gray hairs scattered 
through his raven black hair, and a fluent speaker, appeared at 
the Ouasqueton boarding house, where over two-thirds of the 
county's population were assembled for their Sunday's exchange 
of programmes. He was accompanied by a young woman, both 
mounted on splendid and spirited dark horses. The young girl 
or Avoman was of remarkable presence; she appeared to take no 
thought or look at persons or surroundings, and did but speak 
to answer questions, but those few words exhibited hidden ability, 
and they had a marked effect on the hearer. Her form and 
movement were faultless perfection. The men placed her age 
at seventeen or eighteen, and the four women, the then entire 
female population of the county, placed it at nineteen or twenty 
years. The man, upon being asked from whence he came and 
their future intentions, quickly and with emphasis said that he 
was the far-famed Canadian patriot Johnson of the Thousand 
Islands of the St. Lawrence River, and claimed to have long 
been a terror to the British dominion ; that many of those islands 
had alternately through necessity been his and his trusty follow- 
ers' homes; that his family had maintained an uninterrupted resi- 
dence on one of those islands; that the young woman now with 
him was the remnant of his family; that he had grown tired of 
his island life of constant adventure and excitement, and that he 
and his daughter concluded to leave Canada and journey by 
wagon and horses to the Iowa frontier; that he had already 



THE WORK TO MAKE A WORLD. 143 

secured a home by purchasing a two-roomed log house with a 
small kitchen, from a Mr. Kessler, within two miles of Quasque- 
ton, and had also purchased twenty head of cattle and some tools 
from the same person; that Wildy, his daughter, liked the frontier 
very much, that she had never received any name, but in her 
infancy she was so wild in action that she was called by her 
mother and all her friends " Wildy," and when grown up larger 
was called by the Canadians and the Indians " the wild girl of the 
island," and a wild girl she was, but the Americans, chiefly hunt- 
ers and trappers, called her the " Queen of the Thousand Isles." 

The hero Johnson, after stating that he desired to purchase a 
plow and a few more cattle, and the wild girl had made a courtesy 
that would have done credit to an empress, they mounted their 
horses for their homes. 

Immediately on the strangers departing the county's small 
boy exclaimed, '' Them is the same people I told you 
about yesterday, who were looking at the Injuns chas- 
ing my elk, and who had the nice horses behind their 
wagon; the very same ones they are now riding on; 
and that girl or woman is a white Injun, I know she is." 
"Laws me!" exclaimed the boarding-house madam, "I was 
just going to say the same thing." '* Yes," said Mr. Bennett, 
" I thought the same, when I saw her bound into her English- 
built side saddle with so much ease. That girl has been raised 
among Indians. I seen it in her talk, actions, and walk. She is 
educated, I see, but she is, as the boy Dan says, a white Indian. 
I know there are now several lodges of Indians camped on the 
St. Lawrence Islands where Mr. Johnson told us his troops had 
rendezvoused." 

This frontier boarding house, where I first sighted the wild 
girl and the far-famed Johnson, the Hero of the Thousand Isles, 
contained three rooms and a small kitchen, and was constructed 
out of logs, but it possessed the advantage of having the split 
side of the logs that formed its floors hewn to a line with the 
then indispensable broadax. This artistic operation deprived 
the floors of the wavelike surface that the floors of all the other 



144 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

abodes within the county possessed. Some of the seats we used 
were formed by sawing ofif three to five inches of the end of a log, 
and boring three or four holes into it, and placing three or some- 
times four legs for the block to stand on, and the weary to sit on. 

Our mill improvements brought other settlers to its locality, 
but the Johnsons were rated as the upper ten, more on account 
of the wild girl's intellectual ability than Johnson's reported acts 
of bravery, which soon spread to other settlements within the 
territory. Persons claiming to be connoisseurs declared that the 
wild girl would have been a proper model for a Titian. She did 
not possess beauty alone, but wit and amiability. Her wardrobe 
was scant and common, but its wearer gave it grace and beauty. 
She had from her childhood been her own dress maker, bonnet 
or cap maker, and moccasin maker on the islands. Her great- 
est pleasure was to take her light island gun and go into the 
lonely and dense shades of the Wapsipinicon timber and shoot 
wild turkeys, or to pass over the undulating and expansive prai- 
rie, and shoot down the swiftly soaring prairie hens. 

The wild girl and one of her neighboring women made a visit 
to Davenport to purchase some goods, where she made the ac- 
quaintance of a kindred spirit, a Miss B., whom she invited home 
with her to spend a few days, and go on a hunt and see her shoot 
wild game; the wild girl's object being, if they could sight the 
lone elk, to get her Davenport companion to quietly, under her 
directions, to maneuver in a manner so as to place the elk within 
her range. She had got sight of it when hunting, and noted its 
conduct and cautious action. Soon the hunt took place, and to 
the surprise of all the wild girl shot down the elk, and received 
the envy of all the women in the county and the applause of all 
the men. The boast of the wild girl had been that she would 
shoot that elk. 

I must mention one fact respecting the action of the elk and 
deer in the locality of the Wapsipinicon River. The river was 
the dividing line between them: the elk claimed and had posses- 
sion of the east side of the river, and the deer the west side^ and 
should an elk pass on the wesst side it would be attacked by the 



THE WORK TO MAKE A WORLD. i45 

deer and driven back home or killed, and should a deer intrude 
on the elks' territory it met with the same fate. In addition to 
my personal knowledge I received the same facts from Indians, 
and from Mr. George L. Davenport of Davenport, la., who was 
from his birth raised among the Indians. In infancy his nurse 
was an Indian squaw, and consequently he was a white male In- 
dian in every act, as was the wild girl a white female Indian in 
every act, and both looked and took that part in life. This In- 
dian trait was visible in his bearing at all times; it was a second 
nature imbedded in his composition. 

Mr. George L. Davenport was born on the island of Rock 
Island (near where the United States arsenal now^ stands), No- 
vember 15, 1817, and was the first white child born in this portion 
of the West. At that period Black Hawk and the whites were 
friends; it was fifteen years before the war, and thousands of 
Indians had their homes near by, and several lodges were located 
on the island. The young Indians were his sole associates dur- 
ing his youth, for no whites resided within eighty miles of his 
home, save the troops of the blockhouses or forts on the island, 
and he spoke the Indian language as soon as he did the English, 
At the age of seven he was adopted into the Fox tribe, and named 
" Musquake." A learned invalid soldier educated him in his 
youth. When fourteen he attended school some sixteen months, 
at Cincinnati, O., where he was constantly ill at ease on account 
of being lost and lonely in a crowd. He returned to his native 
island and his Indian friends. At a later day he attended an 
academy at Winchester, Va. On several occasions he acted as 
Indian interpreter for the Government. He was a business man, 
was president of the Davenport Gas Light Company, and presi- 
dent of the Davenport National Bank, and in later days Govern- 
ment agent over the Indians on the Tama County Indian reserva- 
tion. Chief Black Hawk in council stated that Mr. Davenport 
and his father were the only truthful and honest whites with 
whom he had dealt. 

Justice has never been awarded to the deep intellect of the 
American wild man. Mr. Davenport confirmed the statement 



■m 



146 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

that during the agitation of the slavery question in the day of 
Henry Clay's Missouri Compromise, when fists were clenched 
and swords threatened, Black Hawk told the whites that there 
was no difficulty at all in solving the slavery question, if the 
white man possessed wisdom. That all that was necessary was 
for a firm chief of the people to move all the black women from 
the South into the North, and move all the black men from the 
North into the South, and continue the process for three genera- 
tions, after which no Africans would longer exist to create 
strife; that the blacks, desiring to put a stop to slavery, would 
gladly consent, and if it was not an even trade, the persons 
injured should receive pay from the nation. I could also record 
the wisdom of King Philip, Tecumseh, Osceola, and Sitting Bull, 
and exhibit the dialectics of the product and philosophy of the 
wild man, which, if placed before the world in proper form, would 
be quoted by coming generations as is the philosophy of Cicero, 
Plato, and Socrates, but the task is beyond a sailor's ken; they 
were philosophers of the Pythagorean class. Originally it existed 
in every word and thought they issued, yet their Indian nature 
was and is unpliable. No more of this; it will not, cannot be 
appreciated by the present semi-artificial world. 

If Mr. Davenport had been a person to write or speak publicly, 
what an interesting and extensive account of centuries of ancient 
Indian history he could have given to the world, but he had im- 
bibed the wild man's nature in his youth, as did the wild girl. 
Then it became a second nature that could not be cast away. 

The Indian chiefs, as the African chiefs, are the books, the 
proper channel for history to pass through, in its traditionary 
course and form. Mr. Davenport told me that before the white 
man's invasion, the various Indian tribes treated and pro- 
tected from waste all their wild fowls and their elk and deer, just 
as does the farmer protect and keep up his stock of fowls and 
cattle, or they would long since have become extinct; that the 
Sacs and Foxes had for ages resided on the south side of Lakes 
Erie and Ontario, previous to making their home in the Mississ- 
ippi Valley. 



THE WORK TO MAKE A WORLD, 147 

Mr. George Davenport possessed the well wishes and the good 
will of all who knew him. He died in Florida, where he had 
journeyed for his health, on the 28th of February, 1885. 

I must now follow my diary within Buchanan County, a county 
named after a President of many errors, and with no sand in his 
composition. 

The newcomer, Mr. Johnson, was the hero of the day and the 
big man. of the county, but soon Mr. Bennett and two of his 
men missed some of their best cattle from the range; they were 
sold in Dubuque, and a full description of the person wdio drove 
and sold them was obtained; a second lot soon followed to the 
same market, and the evil doer was identified by the purchaser; 
it was the patriot Johnson. To prosecute would require time 
and money. The losers of the cattle concluded to take the short 
frontier cut to justice, to do which Mr. Bennett, Warren, and 
Lewis caught Johnson unarmed, and out of range of the wild 
girl's rifle, and gave him a severe beating, and ordered him to 
leave the county. The majority of the people took Johnson's 
part, and severely condemned Mr. Bennett and his aiders. John- 
son had to take to his bed, and his close and constant friend, a 
Mr. Green, who had purchased one-eighth of the mill property 
from Mr. Lambert, watched over him whilst the wild girl rode 
her horse to Dubuque, during more than zero cold, to procure 
a warrant and officers to arrest Mr. Bennett and our two work- 
men, Messrs. Warren and Lewis. 

The wild girl had read of and knew the courts of Mohammed's 
Caliphs, and the tribunals of the Venetian Doges, but she had 
never seen a court in session, or even a courthouse, yet she 
entered the Dubuque court, and in an impressive manner recited 
the great wTong and injury that had been inflicted on her father. 
Her person, eloquence, and dignity captivated the whole court, 
from judge to janitor, and created a sensation that could be felt. 
Her father's fame as the hero of the Thousand Islands had 
already reached the little mining town, and the court ordered a 
cessation of proceedings, and hastened to issue a bench warrant 
for the arrest of the offenders, and to dispatch the sherifif with 



148 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

two trusty deputies to bring the evil doers before the court. The 
judge left his elevated seat on the tribunal and escorted the wild 
girl to the door, and placed her under the sheriflf's protection. 
The cohort of loungers mounted the tables and benches; the 
baldheaded jurors and the phalanx of attorneys stood with 
amazed countenances and open mouths in silent gaze. 

The sherifif, on whose honest face the map of Ireland was en- 
graved, vowed by the beard of St. Patrick that he would safely 
escort her ladyship to her Quasqueton home, and place Bennett 
and his murderous crew behind the iron bars of Dubuque's most 
gloomy prison cell. 

Out here at that day the Irish controlled the caucuses; now the 
Germans hold the offices, only for America's good. 

Buchanan County, at that period, was attached to Dubuque 
County for judicial purposes, and when the wild girl, on that 
cold and blustering day, with a scowl on her brow and fire in her 
eyes, was seen placing her Canadian courser on the Dubuque 
trail, it required no prophet to foretell her destination and mis- 
sion. Mr. Lambert was requested to immediately mount one of 
Mr. Bennett's fleetest steeds and scout the judicial precincts of 
Dubuque. In due season Mr. Lambert, using whip and spur, 
re-entered Quasqueton to rehearse the scenes of the Dubuque 
court, and warn Bennett and his confederates that the wild girl 
was near at hand on the war-path, re-enforced by the court that 
she had captured. 

The notice was short, night approaching, and a storm was 
brewing, but the three, who had ever breathed freedom's pure 
air, resolved not to enter a felon's cell. Mr. Bennett said that all 
was peace and prosperity until that daughter of Eve and son of 
Satan entered the frontier, and then he struck out eastward to- 
ward Michigan, and Messrs. Warren and Lewis took their course 
toward the timber region of Turkey River, where several wood- 
man huts were erected. The brewing storm broke forth with 
terrific fury, and night set in; Mr. Bennett found shelter, but 
Messrs. Warren and Lewis sank exhausted on the snow of the 
bleak prairie; they were accidentally discovered the next morn- 



THE^WORK TO MAKE A WORLD 149 

ing. Mr. Warren was cold in death; Mr. Lewis was saved by 
being covered by the drifting snow, but it became necessary to 
amputate one of his arms, and the unfortunate Warren found a 
resting place beside the lamented Oscar Day. 

The spring of 1843 soon followed, and a portion of the public 
lands of Buchanan County was to be placed on the market, to 
be sold at auction to the best bidder at Marion, Linn County, 
Iowa. A gloomy prospect presented itself before us. Mr. Lam- 
bert had exhausted his last dollar. Mr. Bennett was a fugitive 
fleeing from justice, and Sailor I possessed a very light purse, 
and word was out that a combination with the hero Johnson 
and the then Jay Gould of the frontier, who is now on the earth, 
in northern Iowa, at its head, to strip us of our mill, warehouse, 
dwellings, land, and our long and constant work, they resolved 
to reap where they had not sown. 

I was at Marion on time for the land sales, and found that the 
reported combination against us was a reality. There I found 
Mr. Johnson and Mr. Thomas Green, and their banker, a politi- 
cian by profession. I felt extremely wolfish toward the politi- 
cian, and resolved to talk frontier to him the first time I should 
sight him, but when I fell in with him I found that he was not 
a Furioso, but a Chesterfield, therefore doubly armed, and I had, 
as in duty bound, to dofif my weatherbeaten hat. And the wild 
girl was also on hand at the sale, the most to be feared, and the 
most dangerous of the four, for her vast power and influence left 
me destitute of a single friend in the large assembly, and I was 
plainly told that I and my partners should never possess Quas- 
queton or an acre of the land, never! 

The wild girl was all-powerful, and swayed the assembly as 
does the moon sway the tide. When at our frontier hotel meals, 
her impressive appearance and action concentrated all eyes upon 
her; she rose from the table like a swan from its cradled sleep 
upon the placid waters of a lake, to take the arm of the deepest- 
dyed villain that ever breathed Heaven's pure and unadulterated 
air. 

At that day the claimants of lands at all the government land 



t^O A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

sales in Iowa appointed a club or court of about seven persons 
to arbitrate and adjust disputes and conflicting claims, and also 
to see that no land speculators should step in and deprive settlers 
of their homes, or run the lands up and over the Government's 
minimum limit of $1.25 per acre when claimed by settlers. I 
called on this claim committee of seven, who refused to arbitrate 
or intervene, stating that the case had already been brought be- 
fore them by a very intelligent young lady, and that they had 
already pledged themselves not to entertain any grievance from 
any quarter connected with that Wapsipinicon water-power land, 
and that Lawyer Green of Marion had told members of the club 
that I had long been a pirate on the seas, and v\^as now a pirate 
on the land. 

The wild girl possessed untiring energy and sleepless vigilance, 
and had made a telling point in the club court. 

Upon the morrow the land sales commenced, and the Quas- 
queton land was reached. I had already deposited my $1.25 per 
acre, purchase money in coin, with the receiver of land money, 
and which was one-half of all the money I had with me, and I 
possessed but a small quantity all told. We had, previous to the 
Johnson war, fondly hoped to secure not less than one section 
of land at the sale. I bid $1.25 per acre on the mill and town- 
site, eighty acres, but the hero Johnson ran it up on me to ten 
dollars per acre, at which price it was awarded to him, but his 
banker objected to the price, and the sale was an abortion. 
Under the rules of government sales this act of bad faith deprived 
Mr. Johnson of the right to bid on lands, but he boasted that he 
had Mr. T. Green and others to do the bidding for him, and that 
the mill company owed him sixty dollars that he would secure 
through the purchase. I felt very sad at the prospect of losing 
our money, work, future prospects, and the homes of four fami- 
lies, so I proposed to Mr. T. Green that if they would drop the 
contest, and I should become the purchaser, that I would deed 
to Mr. Green the one-eighth of the mill property and the town 
lot that he claimed under contract with Mr. Lambert, and would 
also pay Mr. Johnson the sixty dollars that he claimed from the 



THE WORK TO MAKE A WORLD. 151 

♦ 

company. With this understanding I deposited the sixty dol- 
lars with the postmaster, to be given to Mr. Johnson if I became 
the purchaser; if not, to be returned to me. Upon the money's 
being placed in the postmaster's possession, Mr. Johnson in a 
swaggering manner reminded the light-weight postmaster of the 
consequence if he should not fulfill the trust. Mr. Thomas Green 
got Lawyer George Green of Marion to draw up what he called 
a strong and heavy bond, to the efifect that if I became the pur- 
chaser of the land and water power, that I would deed to him, T. 
Green, the one-eighth of the mill lot or property, and a certain 
town lot that he claimed to have purchased from Mr. Lambert. 
Immediately on my delivering the bond, Mr. Green said, " We 
have you tight now; we shall get the whole property if we can, 
and if not, Mr. Johnson and I have secured ourselves." At this 
point Mr. Lambert arrived from Quasqueton to surprise me by 
telling me that I had been deceived; that the company was but 
sixteen dollars in debt to Johnson, for pine lumber he had pro- 
cured in Dubuque, that Mr. Bennett claimed he had been paid 
for in cattle that he took several times, and that I had given Mr. 
Green a bond for a deed to our own warehouse lot ; he had given 
me the wrong number to secure our warehouse to himself. I was 
not carrying a description of the property within my mind, and 
I was deceived. This success in obtaining a deposit with the 
postmaster, and the attorney's lengthy and ironclad bond, elated 
the two, and they entered Receiver McKnight's hotel in the 
morning, and Johnson boastingly said that it might be danger- 
ous to refuse his bid at the coming day's sale, and that General 
Jackson was very short of timber when he placed Receiver Mc- 
Knight in ofifice. This remark was for the receiver's ear, and it 
reached it with efifect, for Mr. McKnight with flushed cheeks 
seized his trim, dapper Irish auctioneer by his coat collar, and 
backed him into the washroom, and with energy said, '' Now, 
sir, attention ! General Jackson has been greatly insulted by that 
man Johnson, who acted trifling with the land office, by not com- 
plying with the sale made to him. It is now time to go to the 
saleroom, and when that sailor lad bids on his improvements 



152 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

see that you knock it down to him quicker than lightning.'' " I 
think I know my duty." All journeyed to the saleroom, and 
under the rules of sale all lands bid off the previous day and not 
paid for are offered for sale the following day, and come first on 
the sale list. The west half of the northeast quarter of Section 
34, in Township No. 88, north of Range No. 8, west of the 5th 
P. M. was called. I instantly made my bid at $1.25 per acre, 
and it was knocked down as quick as lightning; the money was 
already on deposit, and I had the name of the purchaser prepared, 
handed it to the clerk, and departed with the land certificate of 
purchase within ten minutes of the time that I had entered the 
saleroom. Several conspicuous persons appeared to be bewil- 
dered and astonished, and soon followed in my wake. I went to 
my hotel, ordered my horses to depart, when Mr. Green 
and his attorney stepped up and demanded a deed under the 
conditions of the bond. I informed the lawyer and the claimant 
that Mr. Edwin R. Fulton, my younger brother, had purchased 
the land, and that my deed would be worthless, and named 
their warehouse sharp game on me. Upon this Mr. Green 
made a show of drawing a pistol from his person, but I knew 
he had the weapon, and was on the qui vive, and persuaded 
him to let it rest in his pocket. Then Mr. Johnson desired me to 
visit the postmaster and have the sixty dollars turned over to 
him, but I was under the necessity of informing him that the 
officer that he had abused the day previous had performed his 
duty and returned me the money on the evidence that I was not 
the purchaser, upon which Johnson threatened daggers, but used 
none, and I departed for my home. Iowa had her Black Hills 
and her Oklahoma days. 

At that period young Lawyer Green was as shallow as a frog 
pond, but he was a Eugene Aram, minus Eugene's crimes, and 
in time became Iowa's far-famed Judge Green. 

Previous to the Johnson, the wild girl, and the Bennett war, 
we had fondly hoped to secure a large tract of land at the sale, 
but my light purse and Bennett's flight reduced our purchasing 
ability, and we were content to save our work and water power. 




ROBERT FULTON. 



THE WORK TO MAKE A WORLD. 153 

The loss of Bennett's home management was a great loss^ for 
he was a man of remarkable ingenuity and ingenious resources, 
to form and create astonishing wonders of utility from nature's 
scattered and apparently worthless stores, and his absence spoke 
desolation to our world-building at Quasqueton, and Sailor I had 
large work at a distant quarter. 

My brother, who was astonished to find that he was a land- 
owner in Iowa Territory, at my request made Mr. Green a deed 
for the one-eighth of the water-power property, but did not deed 
him our warehouse and lot that he sought to obtain. 

At an early period Mr. Lambert desired to call the coming 
town Trenton. After the land was secured all interested re- 
joiced, and I went to work to write up for my diary an abstract 
of ownership of the land from tradition as well as from records. 
Indications here existed to show that this tract of land, like many 
portions of this continent, was occupied many thousands of years 
now past, and at one period the occupants were moundbuild- 
ers, and no doubt but that the wild man of North or South 
America were the parents of the Tartars, Japanese, and Chinese, 
but we know not the past or the coming plans of the Divinity. 

The first Indians encountered in Iowa by the white man were 
the ancient and once powerful Sioux, not at their homes but on 
their hunting grounds, by Ferdinand De Soto. Forty-nine years 
after Columbus discovered the New World Ferdinand journeyed 
to the upper waters of the Mississippi, and floated on its surface 
down the stream in an Indian canoe constructed out of a large 
tree or log, having been shaped into a boat or canoe by artisti- 
cally forming its outward lines, then burning out the inner cavity 
with red-hot stones and fire, so as to form a light hull. To per- 
form the task requires ingenuity, untiring energy, and vigilance. 
A very few of those canoes have been seen by the white man. 

Then, in 1673, came in this direction Marquette, a Jesuit father, 
to make history for a coming people, and invite settlements into 
the fertile valleys of the Mississippi region, and to convert the 
aborigines. Then in 1682 La Salle followed on their trail to 
descend the now Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. L^ 



154 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Salle named the river upon which he had long drifted and pad- 
dled his canoe, Colbert, in honor of a French Minister of that 
name, and he bestowed the vast territory that he passed through 
to King Louis XIV., and called the territory Louisiana to honor 
his king. 

France was the first white power to control and govern our 
Buchanan County water power, in connection with the balance 
of Louisiana. France relinquished it to Spain in 1762, and in 
1800 Napoleon Bonaparte was in the ascendency, and by treaty 
with Spain again obtained our water power and the balance of 
Louisiana by treaty. 

The French Empire's rule on this continent became an in- 
cumbrance to both the American Indians and the whites, and 
we, under sanction of President Jefferson and his Cabinet, 
through our Minister to France, Mr. Livingston, negotiated a 
purchase of Louisiana, which embraced our water power, from 
Napoleon for sixty million livres. 

My diary says that, in 1834, Iowa and our water power were 
a portion of the Territory of Michigan; in 1837 it became a por- 
tion of the Territory of Wisconsin, and in 1838 it became the 
separate Territory of Iowa, when President Van Buren appointed 
Robert Lucas of Ohio its first Governor. This act produced 
great dissatisfaction amongst the people and his superiors within 
the Territory, and on the 28th of December, 1846, it was admitted 
into the Union as a sovereign State, and numbered as the twenty- 
eighth State. 

At one period Iowa comprised but two counties, a fact known 
to but very few of its now inhabitants. The dividing line of those 
counties extended from the west end or foot of Rock Island, and 
passed west through the city of Davenport and that portion north 
of the line was named Dubuque County, and that south of it was 
named Des Moines County. 

Iowa has an area of 55,046 square miles, equal to 35,229,440 
acres. George W. Jones and Augustus C. Dodge were its first 
United States Senators. Iowa was the fourth State launched 
and rigged out of the territory of Louisiana. 



THE WORK TO MAKE A WORLD. 155 

Since that day of Statehood all has been tame; no wild man, no 
wild game, no Black Hills, no thrilling acts, no Oklohoma 
tragedy; nothing to excite the world, nothing new; the same old 
song, the same old tune — nothing new. 

To confirm my diary written one-third of a century previously, 
with the actors standing before me, I now copy verbatim from 
what is called an early history of Buchanan County, written and 
published in 1875, by a learned and experienced historian, Mr. 

A. T. Andras, now residing in Chicago, whose history says : 

" The early history of this county is veiled in much obscurity, 
yet, from the best information that can be obtained, it appears 
that in February, 1842, William Bennett, a resident and first 
white settler in Delaware County, with his family came to what is 
now Quasqueton, and built a small log cabin at a point on the 
east side of the Wapsipinicon, about twelve rods above the pres- 
ent location of the flouring mill, and was the first permanent 
white settler in the county. The next who came to the county 
were S. G. and H. T. Sandford, who were soon followed by Ezra 

B. Allen. Early the same spring Dr. Edward Brewer, now the 
oldest living settler in the county, and Rufus B. Clark and family, 
came and settled about a mile and a half from Quasqueton. 
Frederick Kessler came about the same time and brought his 
family. A man by the name of Styles came with his family dur- 
ing the summer, and for a while kept hotel — the first one in the 
county — at Quasqueton. Bennett was engaged in improving the 
water power and erecting a mill, and had several young men 
employed, who boarded with him. Their names were Jeflfers, 
Warner, Day, Wall, and Evans. This mill, which was the first 
in the county, was raised in October of the same year. During 
the fall there came three young men — Henry B. Hatch, who 
stopped with Kessler, and Daggett and Simmons, who worked 
and lived with Brewer and Clark. Sometime during autumn a 
liquor saloon was opened and run for a short time. There were a 
few patches of land broken that year, on which a small quantity 
of potatoes and some other garden vegetables were grown, but 



IS6 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

there was no wheat raised in the county until the next 
season. 

" Some time during the fall or early winter of 1842, a man by 
the name of Johnson settled at a point about equally distant from 
Ouasqueton and the present site of Independence. Johnson rep- 
resented himself as being the famous Canadian patriot who had 
lived for years among the islands of the St. Lawrence River. He 
was accompanied by a rather attractive young woman whom he 
introduced as his daughter Kate, the identical Queen of the 
Thousand Islands. Subsequent events, however, proved him to 
have been an escaped criminal, an adventurer of the worst sort." 

This history goes on to say that the first death was a boy some 
seven or eight years of age, who died some time in 1843. 

This report of the first death was an error, for previous to the 
boy's death, which took place late in the fall of 1843, one man 
was shot to death near Quasqueton, and one was frozen to death 
in December," 1842, and one citizen of the county, made promi- 
nent by the historian of 1875, was shot dead in Iowa, but outside 
of Buchanan County, in the woods of Skunk River, and I never 
knew the wild girl to be called Kate, although on her entering 
the county the name question was before the people. The 
boarding-house mistress, who had kissed her almost to death on 
her first visit, soon grew chilly and named her a tomboy after she 
had shot the lone elk. I quote this history of 1875, to in a meas- 
ure confirm my diary report. 

I must now return to the pages of my diary. Soon after ob- 
taining our land and improvements at the auction sale, I had a 
call to the Dominion of Canada, an epoch long to be remem- 
bered. I was reconnoitering near the St. Lawrence River, when 
my mind floated back to Iowa and the Ouasqueton water power, 
the thrilling events and trials that had there abode, the patriot 
Johnson, and the wild girl of Territorial and island renown. The 
Thousand Islands were near by, and I felt a curiosity to visit 
those islands, especially the wild girl's once home. 

Whilst passing along a road through scattered timber, with 



THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. i57 

those thoughts on my mind, I observed a small farm of some 
twenty acres, with a house and garden near the road. A well- 
built man, leaning on his staff, with locks tinged by the frosts of 
time, was approaching the gateway at the road near me, and 
although dressed in the plain Canadian garb of that day, I im- 
mediately knew that he had long been a soldier; and as I knew 
that many of Napoleon's forces on his defeat at Waterloo had 
followed their kin or friends to Canada, I respectfully saluted 
him, and immediately queried if he had not been under Napoleon 
as a soldier or an officer. He looked both hurt and indignant. 
I surmised the cause, and hastily said that on the great general's 
defeat by combined Europe, I had, in sympathy with my parents 
at my old farm home, paraded the fioor with tears of sorrow. He 
bowed his stately head in acquiescence, and proudly stepped for- 
ward like a young soldier on dress parade, and took my hand, 
saying that he was frequently twitted with bitter scorn by the 
English settlers on being a vanquished Frenchman, and contin- 
ued by saying that he had been a soldier in Napoleon's ranks, 
and had with him climbed the Alps, and marched with him 
through the ashes of Moscow beneath vast arches of flames, and 
that he had on the eighth day of September, 1812, placed two of 
his brothers in one grave, which was surrounded by vast masses 
of human blood congealed, on Borodino's battlefield. I then in 
return told the soldier from whence I came, and asked him if he 
had known a man by the name of Johnson, and his daughter 
that he called " Wildy," and gave him a portion of Iowa history. 
With great astonishment and interest he said he knew the girl 
well, and knew Johnson by reputation as an evil man, and the 
soldier said that the patriot Johnson had no daughter Queen of 
the Thousand Islands, no family on the islands at all; that he had 
but used those islands as safe c[uarters of retreat and defense; 
that he was a man of noble soul, respected even by his enemies 
for his manly worth, bravery, and untiring energy in Canada's 
cause of independence; that the Iowa Johnson was the degenerate 
son of a worthy Welsh Canadian, and he was a great criminal 
guilty of every crime known to the Canadian laws, and that the 



158 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Canadian authorities would welcome him back with open arms, 
dead or alive, and the Americans should know that he was a 
fraud and a criminal to be feared. Then he made close inquiry- 
respecting the twain which I in substance rehearse as written in 
my diary. He then said that the girl's father's name was Paul 
DeVoe, and that he had long been an under-officer in his regi- 
ment, and had left France a few months before the speaker had, 
and on his arrival in Canada after long search he found his once 
officer and his wife, whom he wedded but a few months before he 
departed from France, residing on an island of the St. Lawrence. 
The madam was a lady of prominence, culture, and amiability. 
They had been betrothed for several years, but had waited for 
war's cessation. 

Mr. DeVoe became acquainted with his wife when she was on 
a visit to Napoleon's military camp in Italy, to see her kins- 
woman, Empress Josephine, who had accompanied the emperor 
on his toilsome march over the xA.lps, to soon be slighted and 
cruelly cast away. In settling on the lonely Indian island in the 
St. Lawrence River, it was Mr. DeVoe's desire, after the em- 
peror had been banished to St. Helena, to separate himself from 
the moving, active world. He had brought from France some 
two thousand pounds English money, not a large sum to retire 
on, but their wants were few. With their garden and the wild 
fruits and berries, and the abundance of fish and game to be pro- 
cured from the Indians at a very low rate, — and at an early age 
the wild girl became an expert hunter, — they were secure from 
want. 

The wild girl, for by that name the soldier said she was known 
to the very few whites who visited the islands at that early day. 
The Indians gave her this name in her infancy. She was born, 
raised, and educated on the island; she never saw a schoolhouse 
or a church on the mainland. An Indian squaw was her doc- 
tor and nurse, and no gorgeous cradle rocked her lullaby; the 
wild animals w^ere her playmates, and her talented mother and 
father were her teachers. 

There were no whites on the island except a fisherman and 



THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. I59 

his son, and this only during her young childhood, as on the 
death of his boy by drowning the fisherman could no longer be 
content to occupy the lonely hut. The sole population of the 
island, up to 1843, were Indians, save the DeVoe family; occa- 
sionally a hunter or a fisherman might appear. 

The soldier said that Madame DeVoe brought with her from 
France a large and rare library, the chief wealth that she in- 
herited from her literary father, Louis Beauharnais. This 
library, compactly stored within a large recess, and on elevated 
shelves, created a great contrast in the rough room, and this 
library accounted for the wild girl's intellectual strength and 
great oratorical powers. 

After the death of Mr. DeVoe and his burial on the mainland, 
the funds of the remaining two were running short, when a 
French savant who had known the Beauharnais family and the 
library sent a messenger from France and purchased it, with the 
exception of a few volumes that they would not place a money 
price upon, or part with. The price obtained was £260 
sterling. 

Madame DeVoe was a devout Catholic, yet she had never 
entered a church or visited a bishop or a priest on the main shore 
whilst in Canada, but with the wild girl, by permission of the 
lone fisherman, she fitted up the deserted humble hut as a chapel, 
which a traveling French missionary priest dedicated as a temple 
of the ever-living God, and within it held one service to teach 
God's Word and administer the Holy Communion to the two 
whites and a few Indians. 

At the madam's death, through gradual decay, she was placed 
at rest beside her husband, in a church's burial ground on the 
mainland, by her ever friend and countryman, the old soldier of 
Waterloo. 

After my interesting interview with the soldier my desire to 
sail on the St. Lawrence, and visit some of the primitive islands, 
and especially the wild girl's once home, had increased, and I 
asked my new-made friend if it was possible to procure a suitable 
sailing boat and a man, near at hand. He informed me that two 



l6o A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

boats lay in a harbor within one-half of a mile of us; that the most 
secure and comfortable of the two belonged to a genuine native 
of Africa, who had some years previous escaped from slavery in 
New Orleans, and who was truly a remarkable man; he owned 
the boat, but had always refused to lend or charter it. The 
veteran said that he would accompany me to the abode of his 
near neighbor, who was known in the Dominion as *' African 
John," and who was the owner of a choice boat, and as we slowly 
passed on our journey, the veteran said that African John owned 
150 acres of good land on which he resided, that previous to pur- 
chasing it he had rented it; that he was a very remarkable and 
intelligent man to have been born and raised in Africa and been 
a slave in the South. He declared that the ex-slave was the 
peer of the then great John Bright of the British Parliament; 
that his color alone had been a bar to his entry into the provincial 
Parliament. 

At that day, 1843, the renowned Gladstone had not stepped 
before the footlights of the stage of fame, to astonish a gazing, 
gaping world. The veteran said that the African possessed a 
good library which he permitted his white neighbors to use, and 
that he subscribed to more home and foreign journals than any 
farmer in the parish, and those he also freely permitted his 
neighbors to take to their homes at pleasure; all he required was 
their return, which did not always take place. 

As we neared the African's home, we observed him crossing 
his dooryard; we hastened to intercept him and endeavor to 
charter his sailboat, and never was mortal man more astonished 
than was Sailor I, when African farmer John, with marked agi- 
tation, hastened toward me with both his black hands extended 
to receive my right hand, which he seized with a convulsive 
grasp that caused me to cringe, and to the surprise of the veteran 
soldier he exclaimed, *' I have constantly seen and conversed 
with you in my dreams, but I never, never expected to see you 
face to face." Then hastily letting my hand drop from his vise- 
like grasp, he raised his rough hands, and harshly rubbed his 
unmoving and firm-set eyes, exclaiming, " Am T awake and in 



THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. i6i 

my dooryard, or am I but dreaming, as I have done before? No, 
it must be a reality, for here is my good neighbor Pierre." The 
African soon recovered himself from the shock of amazement. 
I was also greatly astonished to meet in Canada an African that 
I had first seen at sea, a slave, and whom I knew in New Orleans 
as " Slashed-cheek John," as he was called when there a slave, 
carrying bricks up a ladder onto a three-story building, on his 
head. He was called " Slashed-cheek John " because his cheeks 
had been cut or slashed up and down in stripes which never be- 
came obliterated. It was a well-known mark of African nobility, 
cut on their face in their youth. Slashed-cheek John was a 
prince, who through treachery had been sold to a Spanish slaver 
by his uncle, his father's brother, to get him out of the way as 
a ruler of the Guinea nation. John was a prince beyond a doubt, 
as I had previously known through those who had seen and 
known him and the king, his father. 

The very extraordinary and tragical circumstances under 
which I had first sighted the prince slave rushed back to my 
memory with a rapidity and force that caused cold drops of per- 
spiration to accumulate upon my rough, weatherbeaten face, and 
I, Hke the prince, had to assure myself that all was not a dream. 
This to me unexpected and extraordinary meeting, and great 
change in the prince slave's condition, caused me to observe the 
situation and acts of all closely, for I was bewildered and amazed 
at the astonishing change. 

When the prince recovered his composure, we entered his neat 
home, as sung and cozy as a ship's main cabin, and I gazed at 
the surroundings with wonder; no great show, but neatness pre- 
vailed — a well-equipped farmer's home. 

It was evident that his wife lacked the pure rich glow of black- 
ness that the prince possessed, and it was self-evident that her 
ancestors had been contaminated by white blood. They had 
three children, who did but a trifle lack their father's shade; the 
eldest, a very young miss of ebon hue, was seated at a rosewood 
piano, in close proximity to a pale-faced, flaxen-haired, and dap- 
per-formed young white teacher, primely dressed, and whose 



l62 •' A LIFE'S VOYAGE. ' ' ' "^ 

downy and scattered mustache appeared to give him great anx- 
iety and much trouble. He named Kingston, Canada, as his 
home. Boy No. 2 of the tribe kept in the background, and the 
most conspicuous portion of his being was an ivory streak near 
the lower boundary of his South Guinea features. No. 3, a small 
pickaninny, not much larger than a marlin-spike, and as black 
as a tar bucket; a very small sample of humanity that at that day, 
1843, ^s a slave he would not be worth in Savannah, Ga., over 
fifty dollars, when a ten-months' pickanniny should be worth 
seventy dollars, or over; but he possessed great ambition, for he 
doubled himself up like a jackknife, and was using every exer- 
tion to cram both of his big toes into his capacious mouth. 

When the use of the sailboat was requested, Prince John im- 
mediately replied that I could have it free of cost, without regard 
to time, and that he ofifered his own services on the same con- 
ditions, and that he was prepared to immediately furnish the 
necessary ship stores for one day's or one month's voyage upon 
the river and the lakes. We agreed upon a three-days' voyage, 
but secured stores for six days, for three persons. The stores 
were safely packed in boxes and vessels, when Prince John 
stepped into his dooryard and blew a blast with a large tin horn, 
remarking that when he was a slave in Louisiana, he and his fel- 
low-slaves were called up to go to work by the crack of the whip 
at the first glimpse of the morning dawn, but he called his man 
with the tin horn, who could, if he thought proper, disobey the 
call and depart for better quarters. His white Virginia tenant 
and farmhand immediately appeared, and was kindly requested 
to hitch up a team to transport us and our ship stores to the 
boat's snug harbor. 

The prince said that his Virginia workman had an interesting 
history which he had freely spoken of to others. He had said 
to them that his father was an extensive slave-breeder in 
Virginia, who had two sons, him and his brother; that on 
their father's death his brother took to drinking strong 
drink, and both of them went to gambling, and they soon 
shipped ofT their slaves to New Orleans; that he saw to 



THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. 163 

their transportation and sales. They soon used up all the pro- 
ceeds of both the slaves and the extensive tract of land, and be- 
came destitute. They then went to enticing slaves to run 
away to the North, and then followed them up, as they knew 
where to find them and under the fugitive slave law get posses- 
sion of them, and run them down the Ohio and the Mississippi 
to New Orleans, and sold them through a Mr. Jacobs, a native 
of Berlin, Germany, a well-known and extensive negro trader, 
who knew of the cruel wrong, and reaped largely from the illegal 
traffic. " It is said to be a duty to forgive those who wrong and 
injure us, but I find it very hard to forgive the negro trader, 
Jacobs, who had me severely whiplashed to bring down my pride, 
as Mr. Jacobs called my occasional talk and objections to slavery 
whilst I was in his negro quarters for sale. This cruel treatment 
by Mr. Jacobs I may forgive, but I can never forget it. My Vir- 
ginia hired man unluckily got caught in running oifif free negroes 
with the slaves and selling them into slavery; this made his slave- 
stealing known and brought his acts to the surface. He was a 
criminal both North and South, and escaped to Canada destitute 
of money, but he found in Canada a good and worthy wife, and 
had made Canada his home of safety. He whilst in Canada 
ascertained that his brother was shot to death at Christiana, Pa., 
by some runaway negroes that he was attempting to arrest and 
shackle." 

The prince said his South Carolina housemaid possessed a far 
more interesting history than did his Virginia tenant and work- 
ing man, but he had been requested not to give it to the world, 
as she was a woman of one of South Carolina's leading and best 
families. 

When we reached the sailboat's harbor the prince gave three 
loud and shrill Indian warwhoops that were echoed back by the 
dense forest and caused a young blanketed Indian to appear in 
a bark canoe, who, upon coming on board of our craft, did by a 
well-directed push send his canoe near the shore, when a young 
Indian squaw, before unseen, in a moment leaped into the canoe 
and like an arrow darted out of sight. The blanketed Indian, 



i64 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

without a sign or a single word, went to work to properly place 
and secure our ship stores and to aid in setting sails. 

We had a five-knot fair wind to waft us to the wild girl's island. 
I seated myself near the prince, who was at the helm and who 
was familiar with the river's soundings, as well as the small land- 
ing cove at the island, and as we sailed upon the ever gently 
flowing limpid waters, the prince said that there resided on the 
wild girl's island, which lay some two leagues distant, a very re- 
markable and widely known and celebrated Indian squaw, known 
as the prophetess, even in foreign lands, who had foretold, when 
quite young, many very important coming events; that the 
prophetess was a member of the once Wissahickon Indian tribe, 
who resided within the contracted valley of the Wissahickon 
Creek, near Philadelphia, during the American Revolutionary 
War and when she was a young girl, a mere child, after the sur- 
render and massacre of the Americans at Valley Forge by the 
English and their cruel German Hessian allies; those Hessians, 
flushed with blood and victory, were on their eastward march to 
cross the Delaware River above Philadelphia to unite with the 
British garrison at Trenton, N. J.; they entered the Wissahickon 
Indian village, and cruelly slaughtered all the men then at their 
homes, and grossly abused their squaws, and also robbed and 
illtreated their good Quaker neighbors. The remnant of the In- 
dians fled from their wrecked homes and journeyed into Canada, 
and united with other tribes on the mainland near the Lakes, and 
on the islands of the St. Lawrence, and amongst their number 
was the then young prophetess, and, although very young, ahe 
declared that she had seen through her prophetic vision that the 
Americans would defeat the English and their cruel allied Hes- 
sian bands, and named the time. Then when the War of 1812 
was raging, and a dark cloud hung over Amer;ica's flag, and all 
Europe, as well as all Canadians and the Indians, expected and 
declared that the Americans were doomed to be blotted from the 
nations of the earth, the prophetess visited the surrounding in- 
habitants and told them all she saw: that the Americans would 
drive the British from their Lakes and from their land across the 



THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. 165 

waters of the seas to their own squaws and homes, and that all 
Indians in time would sleep the sleep of death beneath the cold 
earth, and that henceforth they would never be a great and 
powerful people to step upon the war-path and challenge the 
whites with their arms of thunder; that the pale-face would build 
cities on their camping villages, and their hunting grounds would 
become fields of corn, but after moons almost beyond count the 
Africans would be in the ascendency throughout the world. 

As we neared the beach the prophetess sighted our sail, and as 
was her wont she appeared at the cove, and insisted on aiding us 
to moor our craft. We placed our Indian on watch, and Prince 
John informed the prophetess that I, a stranger, the Indian's 
friend, desired to visit the wild girl's once home. Without a 
sign or a word she stepped forward onto the larboard of two 
diverging trails, which I, on observation, well knew to be an 
Indian trail of very ancient creation; the African prince stepped 
onto the trail a respectful distance from the prophetess, and I 
brought up the rear, at about the same distance from the African, 
and onward at an even pace we marched, and, as Indian etiquette 
required whilst on a trail, not a word was spoken until we reached 
the wild girl's deserted home; then the prophetess merely pointed 
— not with her finger as does the pale-face, but with her whole 
outstretched hand and arm — toward the deserted habitation now 
crumbling in decay; rank weeds were growing up to the very 
threshold, and the jessamines and honeysuckles, that had long 
woven around the humble home a veil of beauty, lay moldering 
on the ground. We entered through the tottering open door; a 
cross-eyed night owl crouched upon an upper timber, and a smell 
of decaying wood floated in the air, and there was the alcove of 
a bay window that the old soldier described to me; two of its 
upper shelves yet remained in place, but the books, the once 
library treasure that spoke through inspiration, were gone back 
to France, and vacancy alone remained to distress the eye, and 
whilst within the then musty structure the prophetess said that 
her guardian angel, who resided on a flowery island within the 
environs of the Milky Way of the blue sky, where snows and 



1 66 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

storms never came, and where the fish did not hide themselves 
beneath the deep water of the lakes, but lived amongst the wav- 
ing flowers and drank the glittering dew, told her that the wild 
girl would not be happy evermore. 

I requested the prophetess to visit the temple spoken of by the 
veteran soldier; she immediately led the way to near the southern 
beach. We entered the temple by lifting a wooden latch by a 
raw-hide string, and there stood the altar, and its massive cross 
erected by woman's hands from wreckage picked up on the 
island's beach. It was adorned on both flanks by very ancient 
damask curtains festooned by silken cords, and here before this 
altar a missionary priest had spoken the Word of God to a few, 
and here upon the little temple's rough split-log floor, did a few 
for many years kneel in silent prayer to an ever-present but 
unseen God. 

Within the shadow of the temple a tiny moss-covered mound 
appears. The wild girl had a little sister; happy voyager! It 
did not long sip the cup of life but winged its way to heaven, and 
here within a cable's length from the temple appears an elevation 
caused by the deposit of a young white girl who was at an early 
day claimed by the grim messenger of Death. She was supposed 
to have been lost from a wrecked vessel on the Lakes. Tradi- 
tion says she was very beautiful, but was unknown. Fair miss! 
had I been thy advocate I would have plead thy tender years, and 
have pointed out those who had outlived their allotted days; 
yet highly favored probationer, thou escaped many earthly trials, 
and were it not sinful I would envy thee thy sweet and happy re- 
pose. Sleep, angel, sleep! Heaven will guard and protect thee! 

The temple was not like unto the grand Belus of Babylon, or 
that of Jupiter at Thebes; it was but a fisherman's log hut, dedi- 
cated by a humble priest to the ever-living God. 

When the prophetess spoke of the deserted cottage, the ab- 
sence of her alma mater and instructor, the w^ild girl, the 
neglected and decaying temple, the tiny moss-covered mound, 
the lone grave of the beautiful shipwrecked girl, and the almost 
total extinction of her once powerful Wissahickon tribe, hot, 



THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. 167 

burning tears flowed in currents down the furrows of her swarthy 
cheeks and I had to soHcit kind heaven to protect with its winged 
heavenly guards the temple and its altar from vandal hands, 
and bestow its blessings on the converted aborigine, and my 
African Methodist responded. Amen! 

We felt our visit ended, and proposed to make our return to 
the boat by a different route. The prophetess again led the way, 
upon a tortuous path; it was the white man's passage way, and 
was flanked by Canadian thistles, briers, and a few trees the 
counterpart of the ailantus. This white man's trail will be over- 
grown and blotted out when our Indian trail that we entered 
through will remain in full and perfect form. I have plowed up 
those Indian trails, yet they could be followed through the fields 
in seeding time, and trails are plainly seen for many years, not 
on the ground, but in the growing and the ripening grain. 

As we were on the white man's trail, and etiquette did not re- 
quire silence, I asked the prince if he knew the counterfeit John- 
son; he said that he did, and well knew that he had enticed run- 
away slaves to the States by offering and even advancing large 
pay, to go there to work, and then, through false masters, have 
them arrested under the fugitive slave laws, and sent back to 
slavery; that he had him.self received tempting^ offers to visit 
New York and New Jersey States; but the offers were too large, 
they could be seen. 

The prince said that the wild girl was very good-looking for 
a white girl, which together with about six hundred dollars, left 
from a sale of books, attracted Johnson's attention. He claimed 
to be a brother of a great Kentucky General Johnson, and urged 
her to depart with him to the American West, and there to go 
to a church and become his wife; but she refused this offer, but 
was willing to be united to the great man within the little temple 
by a veteran Indian chief, who married all the members of his 
tribe since missionary days; that she would never leave her island 
home with him except as a fcmmc couvcrte, and Johnson with 
reluctance consented, and without a doubt the wild girl left her 
island and hermit home as pure as a pearl, and as brilliant as a 



i68 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

diamond. She was not a Magdaiene. It was plain that John- 
son had induced her to play the daughter part on the frontier. 

I asked the prince whether the Canadian or the American Gov- 
ernment owned those many islands; he replied that the ownership 
of some was not in dispute, but that the ownership of others was 
not positively adjusted. This question had frequently taken pos- 
session of my mind, but a few months past, the latter part of 1895, 
I found the following lines published in a New York journal, 
which exhibit an adjustment. I desire to place it on my record : 

'* Canada proposes to auction ofif her portion of the famous 
Thousand Islands. The American portion of that archipelago 
is world-renowned for its beauty, but there are great chances for 
improvement on the Canadian side of the line. There are likely 
to be wealthy American purchasers in plenty, however, and the 
work of betterment may be continued." 

We reached our sailboat, placed a sovereign in the hand of the 
prophetess, upon which she raised her eyes toward Heaven and 
without a w^ord vanished out of sight by the windings of the 
white man's path. 

My diary proceeds to say that we concluded to steer our course 
toward Lake Ontario, where we would have more sea room, but 
as night was approaching, and we had passed a very busy and 
interesting day since w^e departed from the prince's farm home, 
we concluded to secure safe anchorage and take our mess, and 
wait for the morning dawn, and in the meantime talk over the 
long past. When all was snug in shape, and I had written up 
my day's diary, I thanked the prince for the page that he had 
given me respecting the very interesting history of the wild girl 
and the prophetess, and that I would in return rehearse early 
American history that I had personally obtained from my parents 
and grandparents, actors in those trying days; that the persons 
and the latitude of those scenes were unknown to him, but would 
be recognized and perhaps appreciated by others when placed 
upon my record; that a portion would corroborate the statement 
of the prophetess, and to prevent time hanging heavily I would 
endeavor to add to his knowledge of America's early days, and 



THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. 169 

in return obtain from him his own history, and the traditions of 
his darl< comment, to place it within my diary; that I would open 
the subject by saying that the grandparents of three of my grand- 
parents anded at the now Philadelphia landing with William 
Penn s three ships, chiefly English Quakers or Friends, in 1681 • 

he parents of my other grandparent landing at the same landing 
from Londonderry, Ireland, in 1747, and their children soon 
umted w,th Wilham Penn's Quaker meeting and society in Phila- 
delphia. Their religion says, " Treat your neighbor as yourself," 

Do to others as you would be done by," " Be charitable and 

Trllted" "^^ "" "''^"' '"'= ^°' ""' P^P^^^ ""^'^ y°" 

My forefathers all minutely traced and rehearsed their acts and 
their history back to the advent and actions of Oliver Crom- 
we 1 on both the islands; that Oliver was reared a common man, 
but made himself a ruler in 1644. 

Respecting some of the revolutionary scenes rehearsed to me 
and on my diary, was that in which Generals Howe and Clinton 
With 35^ English and Hessians, in 1776, defeated the Ameri- 
cans at F atbush, near New York. The German General Heister 
commanded the Hessian regiments, and the English army roster 
of that day placed the number of Hessian troops in their ranks 
at 20,000; a large army of itself at that early day. A larger army 
than Charles XH. of Sweden commanded when he invaded ani 
conquered powerful nations. In 1777 Fort Mercer on the Dela- 
ware was garrisoned by only 430 Americans, and was attacked 
by 2000 Hessian grenadiers, who had to retreat after a great 
loss; their German General Donop was mortally wounded He 
was known as the Nero of his day. 

In the same year, 1777, General Burgoyne with 9000 English 
Germans, Canadians, and Indians laid the country around 
Oswego in distress and waste, with their blood-dripping swords 
and tomahawks. Villages laid in ashes, and dead bodies piled 
"P by the roadsides, signalized their progress, as a terror to dis- 
loyal Americans The cruelty, slaughter, and destruction would 
eclipse that of th.s day, 1896, in Turkish Armenia. Yk Gods' 



lyo A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

decide the most manly and Christian of the two; Sailor I cannot 
decide. 

General Howe, when supreme in Philadelphia, took up his 
winter quarters on South Second Street, third door below Dock 
Street, used a good Quaker's bedding and furniture, but the act 
cost him a battle. During that winter his troops plundered the 
settlers along the Delaware of all they possessed, and left them 
destitute. When General Howe quartered his army at Trenton, 
N. J., they with every act of cruelty ravaged the western portion 
of the State of New Jersey, and placed hundreds on the verge 
of death through starvation. I could name many acts of cruelty 
practiced by the invaders, and many acts of daring heroism of 
the Americans, given me by the eye-witnesses of that day. 

The ancestors of Sailor I pathetically and with energy re- 
hearsed to me, when their locks were gray, the destruction of 
life and property by the British and their Hessian allies, the bat- 
tles, the trials, and the distress of that day, which tried men's 
souls and from which a nation rose. 

Some spoke of their Pennsylvania and some of their New Jer- 
sey homes, which were within reach of General Howe's Burling- 
ton headquarters of the combined British and Hessian forces, 
from whence pillage and devastation stalked abroad to blight the 
land, and destroy with sword and torch, and create distress and 
sickening horrors. Wild beasts were not their prey, but inoffen- 
sive men and women were sought as prey; to cause screeching 
mothers to call on high Heaven to protect their oflfspring from 
fiendish hands. The unhallowed design was to govern or devas- 
tate the land and convert it to its original wilderness, as is now 
repeated on Cuba's isle. 

A curtain of more than Turkish darkness rested between the 
vision of those invaders and manly intelligence. Sodom and 
Gomorrah did possess one righteous man, and so did Great 
Britain. 

I told the prince that the righteous Englishman, who should 
ever liy«e within the hearts of Americans, was William Pitt, Earl 
of Chatham, and a member of the British Parliament, who fear- 



THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. 171 

lessly and nobly plead in 1778, for the lives of our fathers who 
were within the very grasp of ruthless hands. I must here place 
on my record, for future generations, the plea of the Earl of 
Chatham before the British Parliament. 



SPEECH OF WILLIAM PITT. 

" I cannot, my lords, I will not, join in congratulation on mis- 
fortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a perilous and tre- 
mendous moment; it is not a time for adulation; the smoothness 
of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is 
now necessary to instruct the Throne in the language of truth. 
We must, if possible, dispel the delusion and darkness which 
envelop it, and display in its full danger and genuine colors the 
ruin which is brought to our doors. 

" Can Ministers still presume to expect support in their in- 
fatuation? Can Parliament be so dead to their dignity and duty, 
as to give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced 
upon them; measures, my lords, which have reduced this late 
flourishing empire to scorn and contempt? But yesterday, and 
England might have stood against the world; now, none so poor 
to do her reverence. 

" The people whom we first despised as rebels, but whom we 
now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against you, supplied 
with every military store, have their interest consulted, and their 
embassadors entertained, by your inveterate enemy. Ministers 
do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity or effect, 

" The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. 
No man more highly esteems and honors the English troops than 
1 do; I know their virtues and their valor; I know they can 
achieve anything but impossibilities; and I know that the con- 
quest of English America is an impossibility. You cannot, my 
lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situa- 
tion there? We do not know the worst; but we know that in 
three campaigns we have done nothing and suffered much. You 
may swell every expense, accumulate every assistance, and ex- 



172 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

tend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot; your 
attempts will be forever vain and impotent — doubly so, indeed, 
from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an 
incurable resentment, the minds of your adversaries, to overrun 
them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting 
them and their possessions to the. rapacity of hireling cruelty. 

'' If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a for- 
eign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down 
my arms. Never, never, never! But, my lords, who is the man 
that, in addition to the disgraces and mischiefs of war, has dared 
to authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalp- 
ing-knife of the savage; to call into civilized alliance the wald and 
inhuman inhabitants of the woods; to delegate to the merciless 
Indian the defense of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors 
of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these 
enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment. But, my lords, 
this barbarous measure has been defended, not only on the princi- 
ples of policy and necessity, but also on those of morality; ' for 
it is perfectly allowable,' says Lord Suffolk, ' to use all the means 
which God and nature have put into our hands.' I am aston- 
ished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed; to hear 
them avowed in this house or in this country. 

" My lords, I did not mean to encroach so much on your atten- 
tion; but I cannot repress my indignation, I feel myself impelled 
to speak. My lords, we are called upon as members of this 
house, as men. as Christians, to protest against such horrible 
barbarity. ' Tliat God and nature have put into our hands!' 
What ideas of God and nature that noble lord may entertain, I 
know not; but I know that such detestable principles are equally 
abhorrent to religion and humanity. What! to attribute the 
sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the In- 
dian scalping-knife! to the cannibal savage, torturing, murder- 
ing, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled victims! 
Such notions shock every precept of morality, every feeling of 
humanity, every sentiment of honor. 

*' These abominable principles, and this more abominable 



THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. I73 

avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call 
upon that Right Reverend, and this most learned bench, to vindi- 
cate the religion of their God, to support the justice of their 
country. 

'' I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity 
of their lawn; upon the judges to interpose the purity of their 
ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honor of 
your lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and 
to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of 
my country to vindicate the national character. I invoke the 
genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these 
walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with in- 
dignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain did he defend 
the liberty and establish the religion of Britain against the 
tryanny of Rome, if these worse than popish cruelties and in- 
quisitorial practices are endured among us. To send forth the 
merciless cannibal, thirsting for blood! against whom? Your 
Protestant brethren! to lay waste their country, to desolate their 
dwellings, and extirpate their race and name by the aid and in- 
strumentality of these horrible hell-hounds of war! 

" Spain can no longer boast pre-eminence in barbarity. She 
armed herself with bloodhounds to extirpate the wretched natives 
of Mexico; we, more ruthless, loose these dogs of war against 
our countrymen in America endeared to us by every tie that can 
sanctify humanity. I solemnly call upon your lordships, and 
upon every order of men in the state, to stamp upon this infa- 
mous procedure the indelible stigma of public abhorrence. 
More particularly I call upon the holy prelates of our religion to 
do away with this iniquity; let them perform a lustration, to 
purify the country from this deep and deadly sin. 

" My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say 
more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have 
said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor even 
reposed my head upon my pillow, without giving vent to my 
eternal abhorrence of such enormous and preposterous prin- 
ciples." 



I74 A LIFE'S VOYAGfi. 

The black prince said that prayer and poetry existed in every 
Hne of the earl's address, and that a man with such nobility of 
soul merited the best berth on board through life's voyage, and 
a never perishing flag should wave over him when moored within 
the harbor of death; that the earl's address could never become 
antiquated, and that it fully confirmed my ancestor's report of 
horrors. 

The African prince said that after the revelation of the proph- 
etess, that he had taken a great interest in tracing the German 
history and character with an unbiased intent and mind; that he 
gathered his information from his library, from intelligent per- 
sons, and from a vast number of journals of the day, which in- 
formed him that the name Hessian was bestowed on the British 
allies by the Americans, because the first shipments of those 
troops were procured from, through, and by the Duke of Hesse 
Cassel. Then followed vast additions from Berlin, Frankfort on 
the Main, and throughout Germany. He said that he had traced 
German origin back to the year 484 before Christ, when Egypt 
was reconquered by the Persians, and that they were then as now 
an Ishmaelitish people, and that enlightened observation showed 
the Germans under all and every flag to be and remain Germans 
to and beyond the fourth generation, that Webster explained the 
word Hessian. 

The African said that, in glancing over early and modern his- 
tory, he had ascertained that all German writers, unlike all other 
European writers, went out of the way to obscure any of their 
delinquencies, and ran on the same course to magnify their vir- 
tues; that this was a national trait down to the present hour, and 
left the task of pointing out their lacking to others; that history 
since the birth of Madam Hagar's second son witnesses that they 
did not, do not, look on others with their eyes, but with their 
prejudices; that they for centuries, a great many centuries pos- 
sessed no language, only a jargon, until the learned in the Eng- 
lish language, Martin Luther, patched up that jargon in the six- 
teenth century, as is well known by everyone of even limited 



THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. I75 

knowledge; that they had ever been a very suspicious people, 
almost beyond belief. 

The African, in speaking of numerous superstitious acts, 
named one that appeared to me so horrid that, had I not known 
him to be reliable in history, I never could have given credence 
to his statement. He said that in the fourteenth century a plague 
similar to the Asiatic cholera broke out and became very virulent 
in Germany, and like the cholera, it arose in Tartary and Egypt. 
The Germans attributed the cause and the deaths to the Jews, 
whom they attacked, and whom they literally exterminated. 

Whole streets of them — men, women and children — were put 
to the sword. Twelve thousand of them were murdered in the 
one city of Mentz, and this at a period long after hundreds of 
statesmen, orators, and philosophers whom we now reverence 
and quote had performed their tasks on earth, and gone to rest 
in their tombs. 

At that period Holy Writ, or call it fiction if you please, with 
its wise and scholarly pages, had been written years numbering 
thousands, and the New Testament, call it also fiction if you 
please, had been written over one thousand three hundred years 
previous to the cruel massacre of men, women, and children by 
thousands, under the orders of ignorant German kings and 
princes. Within this New Testament are published letters from 
St. Paul to the Corinthians, written and printed in the long past, 
yet now exist as evidence of wisdom and greatness — letters that 
would be a credit to a scholar of this year (1843). 

As is well known, this wanton cruelty took place after the 
spirit if not the body of the great and wise ruler and lawmaker, 
Mohammed, had winged itself to the happy hunting grounds — 
over eight hundred years previous to this slaughter of innocent 
thousands who had not even raised their hands against the igno- 
rant people and nation that slaughtered them in their beds, their 
homes, and in their flight on the highways. Thus spoke the 
prince, the slave, and the farmer on the St. Lawrence. Yet we 
now with horror cry " Turkish Armenia," and many miserable 



176 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Armenians, generally the offspring of Arabs, beg Germany to 
govern them. 

The African in closing said that their adhesiveness was won- 
derful; stick a pin in one, and the whole tribe throughout the 
world will cringe from the effect. 

Even now, whilst I pen from my diary, the wanton and cruel 
massacre of the helpless Jews by the authorities causes me to 
shudder and feel sad. I suppose they had no Red Cross or Clara 
Barton, to speak a word or stay the more cruel than Turkish 
slaughter in Armenia. 

This day, 1896, many, a great many whites consider a negro's 
proper position to be in slavery, and an Indian's to be in his 
grave. Speak to many whites respecting an African or an In- 
dian possessing knowledge and ability, and they will immediately 
curl their lips and elevate their ears. It will be a valuable lesson 
in knowledge to such to give them a short sketch of an African 
slave who performed wonders that astonished the then world, 
whose act, if performed by a white man instead of a negro slave, 
would have called for a towering monument over his tomb. 

I speak of Toussaint L'Ouverture, who was born at Buda, in 
St. Domingo, in 1743. His parents were African slaves, and 
up to manhood he worked with the other slaves under a slave 
driver. He united with the Catholic Church in his youth, 
through which he picked up knowledge from the preaching of 
the priest, and received a knowledge of letters and reading from 
his creed and hymn book, aided by an old slave raised in New 
Haven, Conn., and he extended his knowledge and education by 
picking up and reading all old scraps of printed or written papers 
and wrappers that he could find. 

His slave teacher possessed a very interesting history — that is 
if a negro can have a history. He was born and raised in Con- 
necticut when it was a slave State; his parents were native Afri- 
cans who were brought to New England from Africa by a Dutch 
man-of-war, and sold into slavery for the sum of two hundred 
dollars for each slave, which was then the current price of a 
mixed bunch of negroes. They had not then run up into the six 



THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. 177 

and to the nine hundred dollar mark, as in the thirties and for- 
ties last past, for common slaves. 

When the question of emancipating all slaves in the Northern 
States came up, the master of this slave family did not desire to 
lose the price he had paid for the parents and the teacher that he 
had fed and raised, so he sold the family of three on the sly, to 
avoid censure by his more humane neighbors, to a St. Domingo 
planter's agent. The boy slave had picked up the use of letters 
at a New Haven Sunday school, and could teach them to Tous- 
saint. 

In early manhood Toussaint's ability attracted the attention of 
a Mr. M. de Libertat, who had large possessions on the island, 
and who employed him at first as a coachman, and then as man- 
ager of his property. In 1794, when the island became a re- 
public, he was chief in command of the forces. 

In 1796 England undertook to steal possession of St. Do- 
mingo, and had gained possession of several ports when Tous- 
saint with his blacks caused the British commander General 
Maitland to surrender to him all of those ports and stations that 
he had captured, and Toussaint was then the Black Cromwell, 
the sole ruler and commander of St. Domingo, under whose wise 
and honest rule it prospered. 

In 1801, the Treaty of Peace of Amiens released Napoleon's 
hands in Europe, and he decreed the re-establishment of slavery 
in St. Domingo, and sent a squadron of fifty-two sail under Gen- 
eral Le Clere's command to enforce his decree. Toussaint re- 
sisted to the last extremity, and when the last extremity was 
reached, he, under stipulation, surrendered to save his negro 
forces from death, and he was received by the French officers 
with applause and military honors, as a great and wise ruler and 
general, but Napoleon, a powerful despot, considered the negro 
slave too dangerous a man to run at large; he might seize upon 
an empire, and in violation of the stipulations to surrender Tous- 
saint was through treachery arrested and confined in a ship and 
sent to a prison in Paris, where he was treated with uncalled for 
severity, and died in April, 1803. But retribution came at St. 
Helena. 



178 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

I laid before the African prince a sketch of Wendell Phillips, 
a man of truth and extended knowledge, and the apostle of 
human rights, a graduate of Harvard College, and a gifted ora- 
tor, who was born in Boston in 1811, and who departed from this 
world in 1884. 

Mr. Wendell Phillips was a very plain, unassuming man, who 
would not attract attention in an assembly of men, but when he 
opened up the gates of his pent-up spirit of right and greatness, 
he dwarfed the supposed superiority that surrounded him. He 
had opponents and enemies numbering many, a great many, to 
combat, but he was never known to strike his colors, or flinch be- 
fore a charge. Humanity and open honesty were his watchword, 
and he always wore his heart upon his sleeve, plain to the vision 
of all, and who, in one of his public addresses on the curse of 
slavery, said: 

"If I stood here to-night to tell the story of Napoleon, I should 
take it from the lips of Frenchmen, who find no language rich 
enough to paint the great captain of the nineteenth century. 
Were I here to tell you the story of Washington, I should take 
it from your hearts — you, who think no marble white enough on 
which to carve the name of the Father of his Country. 

" I am about to tell you the story of a negro who has hardly 
left one written line. I am to glean it from the reluctant testi- 
mony of Britons, Frenchmen, Spaniards — men who despised him 
as a negro and a slave, and hated him because he had beaten 
them in many a battle. All the materials for his biography are 
from the lips of his enemies. 

" Let us pause a moment, and find something to measure him 
by. You remember Macaulay says, comparing Cromwell with 
Napoleon, that Cromwell shows the greater military genius, if 
we consider that he never saw an army till he was forty; while 
Napoleon was educated from a boy in the best military schools 
in Europe. Cromwell manufactured his own army; Napoleon 
at the age of twenty-seven was placed at the head of the best 
troops Europe ever saw. They were both successful; but, says 



THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. I79 

Macaulay, with such disadvantages, the EngHshman showed the 
greater genius. Whether you allow the inference or not, you 
will at least grant that it is a fair mode of measurement. Apply 
it to Toussaint. Cromwell never saw an army till he was forty; 
this man never saw a soldier till he was fifty; Cromwell manu- 
factured his own army — out of what? Englishmen — the best 
blood in Europe. Out of the middle class of Englishmen — the 
best blood in the island. And with it he conquered what? Eng- 
lishmen — their equals. This man manufactured his army — out 
of what? Out of what you call the despicable race of negroes, 
debased, demoralized by two hundred years of slavery; one hun- 
dred thousand of them imported into the island within four years, 
unable to speak a dialect intelligible to each other. Yet out of 
this mixed, and as you say, despicable race, he forged a thunder- 
bolt, and hurled it at what? At the proudest blood in Europe, 
the Spaniard, and sent him home conquered ; at the most warlike 
blood in Europe, the French, and put them under his feet; at the 
pluckiest blood in Europe, the English, and they skulked home 
to Jamaica. Now, if Cromwell was a general, at least this man 
was a soldier. I know it was a small territory; it was not as 
large as the continent; but it was as large as that Attica which, 
with Athens for a capital, has filled the earth with its fame for two 
thousand years. We measure genius by quality, and not by 
quantity. 

'' Further, Cromwell was only a soldier; his fame stops there. 
Not one line in the statute book of Britain can be traced to Crom- 
well; not one step in the social life of England finds its motive 
power in his brain. The state he founded went down with him 
to his grave. But this man no sooner put his hand on the helm 
of state than the ship steadied with an upright keel, and he began 
to evince a statesmanship as marvelous as his military genius. 

'' History says that the most statesmanlike act of Napoleon 
was his proclamation of 1802, at the peace of Amiens, when, be- 
lieving that the indelible loyalty of a native-born heart is always 
a sufficient basis on which to found an empire, he said: 'French- 
men, come home. I pardon the crimes of the last twelve years; 



i8o A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

I blot out its parties; I found my throne on the hearts of all 
Frenchmen ' — and twelve years of unclouded success showed 
how wisely he judged. This was in 1802. In 1800 this negro 
made a proclamation; it runs thus: ' Sons of St. Domingo, come 
home. We never meant to take your houses or your lands. 
The negro only asked the liberty which God gave him. Your 
houses wait for you; your lands are ready; come and cultivate 
them ' — and from Madrid and Paris, from Baltimore and New 
Orleans, the emigrant planters crowded home to enjoy their 
estates, under the pledged word that was never broken of a vic- 
torious slave. 

'' It was 1800. The world waited fifty years before, in 1846, 
Robert Peel dared to venture, as a matter of practical statesman- 
ship, the theory of free trade. Adam Smith theorized, the French 
statesman dreamed, but no man at the head of affairs had ever 
dared to risk it as a practical measure. Europe waited until 
1846 before the most practical intellect in the world, the English, 
adopted the great economic formula of unfettered trade. But in 
1800, this black, with the instinct of statesmanship, said to the 
committee who were drafting him a constitution: ' Put at the 
head of the chapter of commerce that the ports of St. Domingo 
are open to the trade of the world.' With lofty indifiference to 
the race, superior to all envy or prejudice, Toussaint had formed 
this committee of eight white proprietors and one mulatto — not 
a soldier nor a negro on the list, although Haytian history proves 
that, with the exception of Rigaud, the rarest genius has always 
been shown by pure negroes. 

*' Again, it was in 1800, at a time when England was poisoned 
on every page of her statute book with religious intolerance, 
when a man could not enter the House of Commons without 
taking an Episcopal communion, when every State in the Union, 
except Rhode Island, was full of the intensest religious bigotry. 
This man was a negro. You say that it is a superstitious blood. 
He was uneducated. You say that makes a man narrow-minded. 
He was a Catholic. Many say that is but another name for 
intolerance. And yet — negro, Catholic, slave — he took his place 



THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. i8i 

by the side of Roger Williams, and said to his committee: ' Make 
it the first line of my constitution that I know no dilTference be- 
tween religious beliefs.' 

" Now, blue-eyed Saxon, proud of your race, go back with me 
to the commencement of the century, and select what statesman 
you please. Let him be either American or European; let him 
have a brain the result of six generations of culture; let him have 
the ripest training of university routine; let him add to it the 
better education of practical life ; crown his temple with the silver 
of seventy years; and show me the man of Saxon lineage for 
whom his most sanguine admirer will wreathe a laurel such as 
embittered foes have placed on the brow of this negro — rare mili- 
tary skill, profound knowledge of human nature, content to blot 
out all party distinctions and trust a state to the blood of its 
sons; anticipating Sir Robert Peel fifty years, and taking his sta- 
tion by the side of Roger Williams before any Englishman or 
American had won the right ; and yet this is the record which the 
history of rival states makes up for this inspired black of St. 
Domingo. 

" I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his way to 
Empire over broken oaths and through a sea of blood. This man 
never In'oke his word. ' No retaliation ' was his great motto and 
the rule of his life; and the last words he uttered to his son in 
France were these: * My boy, you will one day go back to St. 
Domingo. Forget that France murdered your father.' 

*' I would call him Cromwell, but Cromwell was only a soldier, 
and the state he founded went down with him into his grave. 

" I would call him Washington, but the great Virginian held 
slaves. This man risked his empire rather than permit the slave 
trade in the humblest village of his dominions. 

" You think me a fanatic to-night, for you read history, not 
with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, 
when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse of History will put Phocion 
for the Greek, and Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for England, 
Lafayette for France, choose Washmgton as the bright, con- 
summate flower of our earlier civilization, and John Brown the 



i82 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

ripe fruit of our noonday; then, dipping his pen in the sunlight, 
will write in the clear blue, above them all, the name of the sol- 
dier, the statesman, the martyr, Toussaint L'Ouverture." 

And now, in 1897, Sailor I will place on record the greatness of 
the slave, the general, the ruler, Toussaint L'Ouverture. 

The morrow arrived after an evening's interchange of this 
important history and occurrences, together with our sleep, and 
we weighed anchor and set our sails, but changed our course on 
account of the current and reverse wind to sail upon St. Law- 
rence Bay. When under way I told the African that I had 
always maintained a great desire to know the history, the cus- 
toms, capacity, and the traditions of the Africans and their Dark 
Continent; that I had seen in North and South America and the 
West India Islands hundreds of native African slaves, and closely 
questioned them, but they could add but very little to the informa- 
tion that I had received from sailors and others, who had been 
in the African slave trade; that he, the prince, being of royal birth, 
and a resident up to an age to see and know, should be able to 
give me some idea of ancient Africa, as well as modern, of which 
I possessed a fair knowledge, obtained by very careful research 
within the days of the early African explorer. Sir Mungo Park, 
and followed it up, and untiringly noted it down to date, but too 
lengthy to rehearse on a three-days' river and bay voyage; that 
I would have to retain it for a Cape Horn or a Mediterranean 
voyage; that I especially desired to know if the Africans had any 
theory or tradition of first creation, or of a Creator or any reli- 
gious belief or ideas in that direction; that he, an African prince, 
should possess a knowledge, if any African could possess that 
knowledge, especially as he had within a few years picked up an 
education and a historical knowledge bordering on perfection, 
and almost beyond belief, and he should, on the subject, be able 
to express himself intelligently. 

He replied that the African reads his version of creation 
through tradition, and the white man reads his in a book, and that 
all African tradition was handed down by the chiefs and kings, 



THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. 183 

as are the Indian traditions; that it was an imperative duty of all 
rulers so to do, and they all received their many lessons in their 
youth, as he had done. He said that the white man's creation, 
as written, had been doubted by some, and that the African's 
theory of first creation, as handed down, was subject to doubt, 
yet he found great difficulty in shaking it off his mind, to credit 
the white man's written creation. 

Respecting the Church he said that for a long season after he 
attended the Methodist church he could not realize that there 
could be a power greater than the African deities Reo and Buso. 
When in Africa he felt and knew that it required some great, 
some superior power, to create the vast clockwork of this earth 
and its sk)^ but he then and now believed that there was a plu- 
rality of worlds, with their inhabitants, far superior to ourselves, 
because their age numbered not thousands, but millions of years; 
that an ambitious power that could create one great world would 
not sit down content; that in the construction of this world and 
its grand furniture ambition is plainly stamped. It appears on 
every leaf of the forest trees, on every flower of the valley, in the 
pearl-bordered ocean, and the diamond-set sky. 

With this preface the African said that, thousands of years pre- 
vious to the white man's date, there resided in the then only 
world, — the orb now our sun, the central lamp of both the celestial 
and the terrestrial world, — two deities, one blacker than a coal pit 
or midnight darkness; his name was Buso; the other was pale- 
faced, and his name was Reo. They in unity created the moon 
and the stars. The worlds created by those deities numbered 
thousands, and all was peace and harmony in the celestial world, 
tradition says, until a woman, the daughter of Mars, who was a 
Cyclops, and a beauty of the Chinese hue, appeared and inter- 
fered respecting the tints that she claimed should be placed upon 
the rainbow, which was then on the ways, and being constructed 
ready to launch, and for her to christen. Through this question 
of the rainbow tints, and this woman appearing, an ill feeling and 
jealousy was created between the two deities that never subsided, 
so says African tradition. Then the deity Buso proposed to ere- 



1 84 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

ate this, the lower world, as his kingdom to govern; Reo gladly 
gave his consent, and this, the lower world, then a vast, hot mol- 
ten globe of fire revolving in unlimited space, was cooled off to 
be Buso's future home and kingdom, but Buso, in revenge, before 
emigrating, toppled over the volcanic mountains of the now sun, 
and set the whole mass on fire, to forever blaze, and Reo had to 
retreat to the pleasant regions of the moon, where he is now 
stationed, and known as the Man in the Moon, and the sun re- 
mained on fire, and ever will. 

Reo had peopled his upper kingdom, the moon and the stars, 
with winged inhabitants, who were at his command, and Buso 
desired to do the same, so he formed a vast net of strong reeds, 
and lashed them together with willow twigs, as does the African 
fisherman of this day, to catch the shark and sword fishes of the 
sea, and with this net the great Buso drew from the waters of 
the seas and ocean, men and women of all shades of complexion 
according to the waters drawn from, and he also drew with his 
net from Mother Ocean the first of all beasts that roam on the 
plains and in the forests ; not a single pair of mankind and beasts, 
but many pairs, and left them on the beach to dry and breathe 
the upper air and mature into moving, active life. 

The African deity Buso was of enormous proportions and stat- 
ure; his head rose above the mountains' summit, and his stride 
extended from shore to shore of the Nile, the Niger, and other 
great rivers. Eleven elephants and a rhinoceros could stand 
on the palm of his hand, and his feet were of a magnitude greater 
than that of two 74-gun ships. He carved vast slices of de- 
licious food from off the clouds to feed the starving blacks, and 
with a wave of his mighty hand he caused torrents of rain to fall 
from the sky to quench the Africans' and their elephants' thirst, 
and to cause the parched herbs and grass to spring to life. His 
blackness cast a shadow of darkness around him. The darkest 
clouds of Heaven were his lamps, and cyclones were his toys. 
He was all-powerful. He could hurl flaming meteors from the 
sky and whistle down the winds, and his great mind could 
traverse through Earth, through ether, and through realms 




INDIAN CHIEF BLACK HAWK. 



THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. 185 

above, and he it was who placed the vast rocks on Egypt's tower- 
ing pyramids. He was the African deity, the great Buso, but in 
time Buso became proud and careless, and Reo gained the 
ascendency, and planted Buso ankle-deep in the earth at the dis- 
tant north where in time he perished, and his cold bulk chilled, 
and caused the land where flowers had bloomed, and chirping 
robins and cooing doves had built their nests, and reared their 
young; and where his beasts of burden, the great mastodon, 
propagated and appeared in herds to shake the earth with their 
tramp, soon to become fields and seas of ice, surrounded by 
cold gleaming pinnacles, and the whites now call the great Buso 
the North Pole. Tradition says that there his icy form possesses 
the power to confine the departed spirits of bad Africans forever 
within cold, icy vaults; no sulphurous flames, but tormenting 
cold. 

Previous to planting his great magnetic body, now a vast 
towering corpse of ice, the world knew no North or South, or 
East or West; all nature outside of the walks of the great Buso 
was chaotic; then, soon after Buso's confinement, the cold and 
snows extended even to twin-topped Mt. Ararat, and to the plains 
where gentle spring and summer ever lingered, then spread and 
extended onward, onward with its chilly breath to Florida's 
orange groves. 

This vast corpse, cold in death, drove all the northern nations 
or tribes southward from their previously sunny homes, save an 
Eskimo tribe alone, to there remain and be the monarchs of the 
frozen zone. After many ages those fleeing tribes from the 
northern cold drifted as far south as Italy and Spain, and now 
this day, many claiming to be far-seeing and wise, with strained 
thought and vision, query from whence those strangers came. 
My African possessed the knowledge through tradition of those 
ancient northern people, their acts and southward immigration. 

I will not record a full description of the vast icy corpse of the 
great Buso, alias the North Pole, and the most astonishing and 
interesting surroundings, for whilst I now write of the first crea- 
tion, and the fate of the great Buso, I have just received the 



1 86 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Chicago " Tribune," of Friday, February 14, 1896, which pub- 
lishes that a Mr. Fridjof Nansen has visited the North Pole, and 
I desire to see and test Mr. Nansen's description of the Pole and 
its wonderful surroundings, unaided by Sailor I and my African, 
for Mr. Nansen's description of the Pole and its surroundings 
will settle the now mooted question respecting his visit to that 
Pole. 

I at first thought the prince's statement and tradition a little 
fishy, but after calling to my mind the white man's early history 
or traditions as handed down to us — the Garden of Eden, with 
its beguiling serpent, and its tree of forbidden fruit, "whose mor- 
tal taste brought death into the world, and all our woes," and 
our expulsion from Eden, and granddaddy Adam making man's 
first plea before a court and judge. The water flowing from the 
parched rock; the sun standing still to rob the night to lengthen 
day, whilst human blood was being shed. The daily rations of 
manna from the sky to feed the hungry people. Samson top- 
pling over vast temples, and Madam Lot being converted into 
a pillar of salt, and the stars of Heaven dancing for joy, and the 
herd of swine that rushed into the then ever pacific seas, to cre- 
ate devil fish and tempests, and the shrewd Moses, who was 
cradled in a canebrake, to be for forty years with his Israelites, 
lost and wandering in a contracted wilderness, consuming this 
long period in finding an outlet from that wilderness, places a 
damper on the water flowing from his rock. 

Sailor I would have entered into a contract under bonds, and 
taken payment in goats and camels, to pilot them out of that 
wilderness within sixty days. 

The African's day and creation do not so greatly vary in as- 
tonishment; but many things have changed even since Solomon 
was King, and what is known as Scriptural days. 

It is doubtful if our biggest men, even President Cleveland, 
would appreciate the favor of riding through the streets of 
Washington on an ass, notwithstanding his course was strewn 
with boughs from off the trees. 

If a Chicago and a New York man should enter the Kingdom 



THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLES. 187 

Come and tell the ancients now resting there, who once, when 
on earth, drew water from a well on wash day and to quench the 
thirst of the multitude and that of their camels, and who had 
grieved over that broken pitcher at the well, that in Chicago they 
did not draw water from a well by women's hands, but received 
millions of pitcherfuls every hour of the day and night, through 
a vast cavity opened through the earth, and that the water was 
drawn by hands and arms of moving, working iron from the 
depths of a vast lake to quench the thirst of over one million 
people, and the New York man would say they had no well 
of water in New York, but utilized an ever-flowing, limpid 
stream, conducted forty miles through an aqueduct, now under 
ground, now on the ground, and now suspended in the air, to 
supply the tents and houses of over one and one-half million 
people, and no pitcher is broken at the well, I greatly fear the 
good ancients will say. An African yarn from St. Lawrence 
Bay. 

The African prince said that he had long and greatly desired 
to rehearse to the world all he knew respecting his landing as a 
slave in America, and his position previous to that day, in Africa; 
all of which he said flashed painfully through his mind when he 
met me and his good neighbor Pierre in his houseyard. That 
many of the occurrences connected with that event were to him 
a great mystery that had worked on his mind night and day; that 
he had never made known his home life in Africa, or the trials, 
the hardships, that he and others had endured, and the exciting 
occurrences that he had witnessed, as many of them were almost 
beyond belief. 

I told the African that I would assist him in giving and placing 
on record his advent in America, and the thrilling occurrences in 
its connection, by rehearsing facts obtained in part from a cap- 
tain's log, all of which could be corroborated by documents and 
the journals of the thirties, but that my knowledge in connec- 
tion with his would produce and place upon my diary, and on his 
mind, the whole situation and the facts as they occurred, upon 
which I wrote down as follows, within my diary: 



iS8 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

A Baltimore clipper-built schooner, the '* Metamora," sailed 
from Nassau via Cardenas, Cuba, bound for Vera Cruz, with a 
crew of captain, mate, six seamen, a cook, and also a one-armed 
ex-sailor, Golas, a Mexican, who had lost his left arm in an en- 
gagement on the Gulf of Mexico, whilst in the Mexican service. 
He was a brave and fearless young man; he was destitute of 
funds, but desired to return to his kindred in Mexico. The 
schooner took him on board as an act of duty due to a brave 
sailor, yet he volunteered to aid whenever necessary or called 
upon. 

One-armed Golas had witnessed many historical events and 
passed through many severe trials; he enlisted in the Mexican 
land forces in 1823, when but nineteen years of age. Witnessed 
as a soldier the capture of Emperor Don Augustin Iturbide at 
Arrogas, and was in the ranks when the emperor was shot at 
Padilla, on the loth day of July, 1824; and was present and wit- 
nessed President Vincente Guerrero shot to death on the loth 
day of February, 1831, as a traitor to his country, when he was 
not a traitor but a noble man. 

When in 1830 Ferdinand VII. of Spain fitted out a squadron 
in Cuba, to invade and recover his lost Mexican possessions, in 
a naval engagement on the Gulf of Mexico off Tampico, Golas, 
who was then a sailor, lost his left arm. There is a bitter hatred 
in the breast of every Mexican against the Spaniards, their once 
cruel and unrelenting masters, and sailor Golas possessed that 
hatred, and expressed it whenever Spain or Spaniards were men- 
tioned. He denounced them as a haughty and a cruel people. 

All on board were under twenty-seven years of age, except the 
Mexican and a Greek sailor Sapoles, who was near forty years 
of age. The other eight men were all Americans. The cap- 
tain was the youngest man on board. The cook had been a 
sailor on board of a Nantucket whaler from his youth, but had 
broken one of his legs from falling on the deck from a yardarm 
in a storm. The injury shortened the leg, yet he was surprisingly 
quick and active. 

One hazy morning when our reckoning indicated that we were 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 189 

no great distance off Matanzas, Cuba, a man was sent aloft to 
investigate the surroundings : he immediately reported a sail, sup- 
posed to be a ship, not a half league distant over our bows; our 
course would cross her wake, and we were nearing her. A puff 
of wind partly cleared off the haze, and the lookout reported 
that the ship had many men on board. The captain asked if 
they were forward or aft; the answer was, '' Most all forward." 
Soon there was a commotion on board the ship. They had 
sighted us, and over one-half the persons on the deck hastily dis- 
appeared below, and the ship hoisted a flag of distress, and lay 
to, and a small boat with three men in it was seen rowing to- 
ward us; we shortened sail so as to receive them on board; two 
of the three soon reached our deck. It was plain that both were 
men of shrewdness and good talkers. The leader, who had occu- 
pied the stern of the boat, said that he was a Spaniard and the 
first mate of the ship, and as he spoke but little English he had 
brought an American to talk to us, for they saw by our colors 
that we were Americans. The strange sailor said that his name 
was George Bedford. Sailor Bedford was a well-bronzed and 
active-looking young man, of medium height, with elasticity in 
his walk and in every motion, and intelligence was marked on his 
features and mingled with his every word; but he was very oddly 
dressed for a sailor, having on his head the crown of a slouch 
hat with most of the rim cut away, a large-sized chocolate- 
colored frockcoat with the skirt cut off at his hips, with Scotch 
plaid trousers held in place by a strip of canvas. His footgear 
consisted of a pair of Russian-leather boots with their tops cut 
off well down to his feet. Some time after this visit to the little 
schooner he told her officers that his Spanish captain had ordered 
him to put on his American coat and hat to go on board of the 
schooner. Sailor George stated that the ship was short of both 
ship stores and water; that they wished to get our bearings and 
they desired all the stores and water that the schooner could 
spare; that they had lost two boats, and the small one, the cap- 
tain's barge, then alongside of us, was all that remained, and that 
it was injured and could not carry much more than the three men 



190 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

that manned it, without taking in water, and they desired that we 
furnish them with a larger boat to transport the stores that had 
been promised by us. The captain objected to this, but volun- 
teered to run the schooner alongside of the ship, and pass all the 
stores he could part with on board of her, as the sea and weather 
were very favorable. The Spanish mate agreed to this, but when 
the captain requested that sailor George be left with him on 
board the schooner to aid in handling the stores, as he would re- 
quire most of his small crew in sailing the schooner, and coming 
alongside of the ship in safety, and that the ship must set her 
sails and yardarms in position to receive the schooner, the Span- 
ish mate did not appear to like this reasonable proposition, but 
finally consented. The captain was fearful that the mate would 
offer himself instead of the American sailor, but he entered his 
boat and steered for his ship, looking dissatisfied. 

The captain immediately took the strange sailor into the cabin, 
and requested the Greek mate, Sapoles, and Golas, the one- 
armed Mexican, and limping Ike, the cook, to follow, and then 
he said to the strange sailor, '' Speak quick and truthfully. Are 
you not worked up in mind with fear, and is not the ship you 
just left a slaver and a pirate, and has she not at this moment a 
cargo of African slaves on board of her? " The sailor answered, 
*' Yes, captain, all is just as you have named; she has a cargo of 
some 240 negroes on board, and so many have died and been 
thrown overboard that I have lost my count, and I am doomed 
to death because I know too much, the moment that we sight 
Cuba and I am no longer a necessity at sea, or in Africa as an 
interpreter and a sailor. The ship's crew — sailors, four special 
guards, steward, carpenter, three cooks, and officers — numbering 
forty-three of us, all told. 

" When we sighted your schooner our captain said we must 
get correct bearings from that schooner, and some ship stores 
if we had to take them by force if we can reach her, but we must 
avoid a conflict in this latitude, for our reckoning, if near correct, 
places us near Cuba and Florida, and it might cost us the ship 
and cargo. He immediately ordered all hancjs then on deck e?c- 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 191 

cept the slave merchant, first mate, and eight of us sailors, whom 
he named, to remain on deck, and ordered the other sailors, 
then off watch and on deck, the second mate, steward, two cooks, 
and carpenter to go below in the main cabin to lull suspicion, and 
instructed them not to appear on deck or in sight unless called by 
a blast of the ship's trumpet; for we had hailed a topsail schooner 
sailing under the American flag on yesterday noon and hoisted 
a flag of distress ; but we had a large exhibit of men on deck and 
the schooner, without a sign or word, changed her course and ran 
from us at over ten knots before the wind. Every man on board 
the ship save the owner is a soldier and a sailor, and can go aloft 
if necessary; and the slave merchant is constantly in calm weather 
practicing on a chalked-out man at the ship's length, to the great 
danger of all on board. 

'' During a tempest off the African coast we lost two of our 
guards by sickness. Both had been soldiers when Napoleon in- 
vaded Spain in 1808, and we lost two sailors by beiog washed 
overboard on the same coast. All on board of that ship, with 
the exception of the second mate, a Portuguese, are desperate 
men, to be greatly feared. Strict discipline is observed by all on 
board and all are put under drill each week, if the weather per- 
mits, and we constantly keep near the bow, in a rack and well 
sheltered by a canvas, twenty loaded muskets, all the time kept in 
good order by the guards, to be at hand at a moment's notice 
if the slaves should revolt or outside invasion take place, and 
there is an armory room below deck, stored full of muskets and 
other arms in position to seize and use instantly. When we 
sighted your schooner the two guards on deck were ordered to 
take their muskets with them and go into the main cabin with the 
others, out of sight." 

The stranger George further said " that one of the slaves of 
intelligence, whom he knew for over two years in Africa and who 
was sold to the ship to get him out of the way, and who had been 
at his request permitted during most of the long voyage to re- 
main on deck, as he was a willing worker at the pumps by night 
and day, and was yet more useful in communicating orders to 



192 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

the slaves below deck — we named him Slashed-cheek John, be- 
cause he had no reasonable name and his cheeks had been scarred 
or slashed in his infancy — is to the slaver a very dangerous 
man; he has now a plot on hand to burn the ship as soon as land 
is sighted within swimming distance. All the African men and 
women are good swimmers, some of them on salt water good 
for five miles or more in a calm sea, and as I told you, cap- 
tain, in the cabin, Slashed-cheek John is constantly on the watch 
for freedom, and if it is possible he will be at your side if you 
attack the slaver's forces on board the ship. As you observed, 
our sails were ordered shortened and three of us sent on board 
your schooner." 

After this hastily given information and a few questions asked 
the captain said, *' Please, all attention ; for there is not one min- 
ute to spare. The ship's mate who has just parted from us will 
soon reach her deck and report our coming and our forces and 
strength for offensive and defensive action, which I was very 
anxious and particular to lay before him, when he hinted in that 
direction, and I observed that the shrewd and observing Span- 
iard cast an eye of contempt on one-armed Golas and limping 
Ike, the cook. 

" Now men, attention. If you all say the word and feel that 
you can support the word, we can and will capture that slave 
ship, and its large and well-armed force, and release the large 
number of slaves now on board of her; we can perform the act, 
I feel confident. I have the whole programme perfected and be- 
fore my mind's eye; the proceeding is short, and can be accom- 
plished, but it is, as you all well know, a little dangerous. There 
is no time to lose. We must immediately get a cask of water on 
our deck; it will be wanted, and we must make a false show of 
getting stores on deck by placing some light packages there that 
you can instantly handle." All present with one voice exclaimed, 
" Captain, we will perform our part; name it," the strange sailor 
George, and the one-armed Mexican included, and who said that 
he could handle a musket with the aid of his stump arm just as 
well as he ever could, and especially when the target was a Span- 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. I93 

iard, a people who had oppressed and then slaughtered his par- 
ents. Sapoles, the Greek mate, said he did not know the Span- 
iards' fighting capacity, but his experience told him that it would 
be folly for nine men of any nation, two of them disabled, to at- 
tempt to capture one-half of that number of Turks, on board of 
their own ship, yet he was on hand to liberate a shipload of Afri- 
cans at the risk of his life. The captain then continued by say- 
ing, " We cannot, must not carry or exhibit a single gun ; they 
must remain in the cook's galley, where we stored them on sight- 
ing the ship and noting her action; we may require them, but 
each and every man must see that his sheath knife is in good 
order and secure in his belt;, that he, the captain, would carry a 
navy pistol and a sheath knife concealed by his blouse, and that 
the slaver with its large crew will never suspect an attack until 
it comes, and then their astonishment will be so great that it will 
paralyze them and place them within our powder. You have all 
heard what sailor George has said respecting their act of hiding 
below decks, and their stock of arms waiting for us to use them, 
and the important aid of Slashed-cheek John if he is permitted 
to remain on deck, and no doubt he will be permitted to do so, 
as he will be an aid in receiving our stores that they expect to 
obtain. The lives of every one of us depend on prompt concert 
of action; two minutes, not more than two, will decide all — yes, 
two minutes after we make fast to the slaver will decide our fate. 
The bulk of the crew now stowed away below must not be per- 
mitted to reach their deck. Now, Mexican Golas, Sailor George, 
and Cook Ike, attention! It is your first part and duty, the mo- 
ment we make fast, to spring on board the slaver and each of you 
to seize a musket from the rack, and sailor George will imme- 
diately tell Slashed-cheek John to arm and free himself from 
slavery. John is now waiting for the strife for freedom with 
great anxiety, for George says he has for weeks looked for its 
coming in every cloud and in every wave, and he will be a very 
valuable recruit. The programme is for Mexican Golas to in- 
stantly rush with his musket to the cabin companion way, and 
Cook Ike to rush to the forecastle hatch, and see that no m^n 



194 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

approaches the deck from below. The action of the two un- 
armed and crippled men for a few moments will not create sus- 
picion, and when suspicion comes, it will be too late. Mate 
Sapoles must also be the next to secure a musket, and see that 
the enemy do not secure any arms, whilst the balance of us by 
haste and force compel every man on deck to enter the main 
cabin, where we will have them corraled, and at our mercy." 

The ship rested much higher out of water than did our 
schooner, notwithstanding the loss of a portion of her gunwale, 
the point we intended to take possession of, so we got empty 
water casks and boxes, and rigged a staging, and placed some 
boxes and packages of stores on the elevation to make a show. 
We successfully came alongside of the ship, and within a single 
half minute every man of us was on the slaver's deck, and with 
our sheath knives and captured muskets drove the officers and 
crew like a flock of sheep into the cabin. The slave captain at- 
tempted to draw a pistol that he always carried, when the agile 
sailor George clubbed his musket and knocked the captain's arm 
limp and helpless at his side, and his pistol dropped on the deck, 
upon which, without a word, he obeyed orders, and hastened 
below into the ship's cabin, followed by every member of his 
crew, as they were pressed forward by deadly muskets and sheath 
knives. One of the guards entered the companion way, with his 
gun in hand, to ascend to the deck and investigate the cause of 
commotion, but Mate Sapoles ordered him at the muzzle of his 
borrowed musket to retreat. We afterwards learned from one 
of the slaver's cooks that on his retreat he reported to his com- 
panions that he had seen over fifty armed soldiers in possession 
of the deck, and he could not understand the cause of no one on 
the deck giving an alarm. He did not know that we had quietly 
but firmly told the officers and crew on deck to immediately and 
without one word march into the cabin, and no harm would 
come, but one word or resistance, and every man of them would 
meet death on the deck; that the bars and the bolts of the iron 
grated hatches would instantly be thrown back, and the slaves 
vS^t loose to put thern all to death; that the armed African, 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 195 

.Slashed-cheek John, stood ready to draw the bolts, and give his 
slave companions the word of onset and slaughter to freedom. 
This word caused every slaver to quake and cast his eye upon 
Slashed-cheek John where he triumphantly stood, musket with 
bayonet in hand, a terror to the slaver's crew. No sooner was the 
last man, an obstinate sailor, forced below at the muzzle of the 
captain's pistol, than the slave merchant rushed partly up the com- 
panion way and with a musket fired at the captain some fifteen 
feet distant, cutting through the left sleeve of his blouse where it 
rested against his body, and entering the heart of sailor Jim Nel- 
son, who dropped dead on the slaveship's deck. A second mus- 
ket was instantly handed to the slave merchant, who hastily fired 
the second shot, and sent a ball through sailor Bill Brown's leg, 
just above the kneecap, shattering the bone to pieces, and tearing 
the flesh into shreds. The slave merchant could have been shot 
down, but the captain's orders were not to fire unless he so 
ordered. He said to kill one of their men might set the passions 
of all on fire; that their numbers were large and ours were very 
small, and a desperate struggle was sure to follow the act. We 
immediately doubled guard at the cabin, and formed a breastwork 
out of two large cook stoves, and under its protection brought 
aft a 6-pound brass cannon, which was already loaded with lead 
slugs, and tipped it so as to rake and clear a passage to the cabin's 
rear. This act silenced all below decks. Then the schooner's cap- 
tain quietly and deliberately informed the prisoners that if further 
resistance was offered every slave should be released to take their 
worthless lives. Then the slave merchant, the only man visible, 
glared on the schooner's captain with the eyes of a devil, and 
disappeared out of sight and danger. 

The quartering wind from ofif the land freshened and dispelled 
the mist, and Cuba was plain in sight, not over two leagues dis- 
tant. As we were short of men to guard the prisoners, man the 
ship, and protect our schooner, through the death of Jim Nelson 
and the loss of sailor Bill's leg, and we would have to send some 
men aloft to set sail to beach the ship as the captain designed to 
(io, we consulted Slashed-cheek John, and liberated five of th^ 



196 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

slaves that John said could handle a gun or paddle a canoe, after, 
giving them provisions and water to consume, whilst standing 
guard behind the captain's barge breastwork, with muskets and 
bayonets, under the command of Slashed-cheek John. 

The captain and every white man on board knew that it would 
not be prudent to permit a large number of the slaves to have 
their liberty after the cruel treatment that they had received, and 
Slashed-cheek John had schooled them in revenge, as he had ex- 
pected to use them in securing liberty. 

We all well knew that to abandon or land both the white pris- 
oners and slaves on the island would not give the slaves their free- 
dom; that the masters must be retained, especially the murderer 
of sailor Jim. Our whole proceeding on board the ship up to 
this act had not consumed thirty minutes; every act, every move 
was on the double-quick. 

Now came the momentous question of separating the slaves, 
officers, and crew, and landing them on Cuba's island, and secur- 
ing them from harm, as well as ourselves, as one and all of the 
near three hundred that we controlled were to be greatly feared. 
A freak in action might at a moment take place. 

The captain requested the Portuguese second mate to come on 
deck; that he would not be injured; he immediately complied, 
and was told that he and' other members of the ship's crew would 
be landed on the island as soon as we reached it. He expressed 
himself as well satisfied, and was then requested to aid in set- 
ting all sails to beach the ship. To this he willingly consented 
and went to work, making preparations with the aid of the 
schooner's sailors. This Portuguese was the most valuable 
navigator of the slaver's crew; he declared that he was well 
pleased with the result; that the Spaniards had discriminated 
against him during three voyages, especially during this last 
voyage. He was very valuable to us, as he had been the ship's 
sailing master during the three voyages, and the ship through 
its injury near the African coast had erected a jury-mast, and 
added numerous lines and stars to secure its shattered foremast 
that he was competent to adjust without delay. 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 197 

Then the two guards that were in the cabin were ordered on 
deck; they Hngered and queried if they were to be shot, when 
we answered no, but to hasten and obey orders, they compUed, 
and were handcuffed and taken aft under guard and seated 
flat on the deck. Then the slave captain was ordered 
onto the deck; he asked what for, and was told to be 
handcuffed. He refused to comply, and was told that the 
cabin companion way would be barricaded securely, the ship 
beached, the slaves landed, and if the ship did not sink in beach- 
ing that she would be scuttled and sunk, and they all drowned 
like rats. He then reluctantly and slowly came on deck; the 
handcufifs were sprung on his wrists and he was seated aft with 
the two guards. Then, two by two, the whole balance of the 
ship's crew were called on deck and handcuffed in quick order, 
and all were seated on the deck; the slave merchant being the 
last called for. When the handcuffs were about to be placed on 
him he stepped back and objected to being disgraced by having 
negro shackles on him. At this point Slashed-cheek John pro- 
posed to save him from disgrace by launching him overboard 
into the ocean; this proposition caused him to change his mind. 
All were required to sit down or lay down on the deck, when 
the captain informed them that any man that attempted to rise 
to his feet would instantly be shot to death. The trusty Mexi- 
can Golas, and three slave guards, were so instructed. 

The victory being gained beyond even the shadow of a doubt, 
then came the most interesting and exciting chapter of the pro- 
gramme — the feeding and watering of more than 240 starved and 
parched-throat slaves. The schooner's captain and his un- 
daunted Spartan band greatly felt the want of refreshing water, 
but the captain declined to quench his thirst or permit a man to 
leave his post for that purpose until every slave should receive his 
quota of food and water. 

Twelve slaves were admitted onto the deck, who were joined 
by the two remaining slave guards, and put in charge of Slashed- 
cheek John, and lame Cook Ike, to form a foraging party, and the 
slaver's second cook was released from his shackles, as an expert 



198 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

to overhaul every pantry, storeroom, and recess of the ship for 
provision and water. All that could be found was hastily place^ 
on deck; the most abundant was hard, coarse sea-biscuit; near 
one barrel of corned beef, and a portion of a barrel of pork, some 
beans, flour, dried fish and beef; in what their cook called the 
cabin storeroom were found two barrels of a good quality of sea- 
biscuit, some African bulbs of the potato species, a fair stock of 
coffee, tea, sugar, syrup, and a large number of bottles of Ma- 
deira, Malaga, and some other wines. The cooking stoves were 
wrecked and in our breastworks, and no time to cook if they were 
in place; a half barrel of rancid lard, and over a half barrel of 
sperm-whale oil was found. Now came an interesting view and 
lesson in starved human nature; a cup of water was given to each 
slave; the raw meat was rapidly sliced in small pieces so as to 
go round; the bulbs, fish, beans followed. Then came a large 
quantity of good and bad sea-biscuit; some good ones, with a 
cask of water and fruit from the little schooner. The rancid lard 
and the sperm oil were passed to the slaves in buckets and pans, 
and they dipped their sea-biscuits into it, and consumed every 
drop of the grease. A half barrel of good rice was found, and a 
portion of it passed to the slaves, who ate handfuls of it in its 
raw state. They were well prepared for this operation, for never 
did the same number of human beings possess superior teeth; 
some twenty of the slaves were weak and sick, but able to walk, 
and Cook Ike, with his aids, was commissioned to furnish them 
with any stores from the schooner that he thought proper. A 
further supply of water was furnished to all and every man on 
board, the shackled prisoners included. 

At this point the slaver's captain complained that his right 
arm that the impudent sailor Bedford had stricken with his gun 
gave him pain from being confined by irons, and requested to be 
released. The captain complied with his request by releasing 
his right arm and hand, and ironing his left wrist to the right 
wrist of the guard who handed the slave merchant the musket 
to shoot down sailor Jim Nelson and to shatter the leg of sailor 
Bill, who at that moment lay within thirty feet of him, groaning 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 199 

with excruciating pain. The loss of those two men left us but 
seven of our schooner's crew to subdue and dictate to a host; it 
was the brain of a few, a test of the power of intellect and reso- 
lution, to encounter, control, and move into action the bones and 
sinews of a vast number, in the very face of their fears even of 
dreaded death before them, and to submit to a power that they 
had but lately despised. 

We subsequently learned from the slaveship's second mate, the 
Portuguese, who, Bedford said, was the only man to be trusted, 
that the first mate on returning from our schooner reported that 
its crew consisted of green American boys, some with one leg and 
some with one arm, and that when we were delaying, in erect- 
ing a platform to instantly reach the ship's deck, and preparing 
for action, her captain with impatience exclaimed, '' A miserable 
crew of ignorant Yankee landlubbers; their reckoning, when 
reported to us, cannot be depended on. If I had my comple- 
ment of boats, I would very soon settle this delay." 

We were very anxious to reach the shore and beach the ship, 
so as to make a landing, for if we grounded at a distance ofi the 
shore, the slaves and prisoners would have to be transported in 
small boats ; a long and very dangerous undertaking for our small 
number; or abandon the ship and seek security in our schooner, 
and all had declared, "No, never!" We had also to protect 
our schooner by casting her off and anchoring her, for we had 
found anchorage, and for safety placed a man on board of her, 
which reduced our forces that we greatly regretted to part with. 

Notwithstanding the shattered and crippled condition of the 
ship's foremast, topsails were run up and studding sails set, and 
every foot of canvas that she possessed was spread to the wind, 
for it was of vital importance that we should succeed in making 
the shore. We were within one-half of a league from the island 
shore when the schooner's captain took the helm, and whilst on 
the starboard tack, with an eight-knot wind, the damaged masts 
groaned under the pressure. He ran the ship onto a small 
promontory, with a crash and surge that sent the shattered 
foremast with its stays and rigging toppling forward, cutting 



200 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

through the gunwale and dipping into the ocean, forming a first- 
class staging into five feet of water, a few rods distant from the 
shore. 

Now came the order to hastily and immediately land, ten by 
ten at a time, all the slaves, by the fallen mast staging, save 
Slashed-cheek John, who begged to ship as a sailor on the 
schooner. All the slaves had been instructed by sailor Bedford 
and Slashed-cheek John to prepare to go on shore and to have 
the sick and weak placed in safety in case the ship should spring 
a dangerous leak in beaching, and when on shore to keep entirely 
clear of the ship's first mate, the three guards, steward, cooks, and 
seamen, who would immediately follow them on to the shore. 
There was no fear from the slave merchant, the captain, or the 
guard who aided in slaying the good and kind sailor Jim Nel- 
son, and maiming the intrepid and heroic sailor Bill for life, and 
for whose immediate execution all on board had been constantly 
clamoring since the commission of the horrible deed, and who 
were only appeased by the captain's promise to give them and the 
slaver's captain a court trial, to establish their guilt or innocence 
from facts deliberately introduced before the court, and the pro- 
ceedings and decree of the court to be entered on the schooner's 
log for reference, which court the captain pledged should be con- 
vened at the first favorable moment after the schooner was under 
sail; that it would be a rash act to shoot down the murderers 
without a moment's warning; that prudence said, dispose of the 
slaves and the innocent portion of the crew, and then deliberate 
and decree the punishment. 

The slaves, after their long and close imprisonment, appeared 
greatly pleased to enter the pleasant and refreshing ocean's water 
on their short journey to the shore, and some, against the captain's 
command, tarried to find a greater depth to bathe and swim in. 
Two young women who swam out to the ship's stern to enjoy a 
deep-water bath were met by a light incoming wave that struck 
the grounded ship, and slowly recoiled to envelop them. They 
were good swimmers, but in their sick and weakly state from 
long imprisonment and want of food, their energy was gone, and 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 201 

they seized each other for protection, and disappeared beneath the 
surf. Slashed-cheek John hastened several of the slave men to 
their relief, who dived down and brought them up from the bot- 
tom, their emaciated bodies firmly embraced in each other's black 
arms, but their spirits had departed. The captain said, '* Return 
them in their embrace of death to their watery tomb." He was 
obeyed, and some 244 slaves in their bare feet slowly tramped 
up Cuba's pebbled beach without a cringe to seek man's 
habitation and their uncertain fate; some of them carry- 
ing small packages of sea-biscuit, rice, beans, and some stores 
dealt out to the sick and weak by limping Ike, the cook of the 
schooner. 

The five slaves that had been selected to stand, musket in hand, 
behind the breastwork, hastily created by the slave captain's 
barge being placed on its side, and clad with iron and hempen 
cables, were retained on duty, as they were essential as guards, 
and a menace to the prisoners during the very dangerous task of 
landing the large number of desperate men by a few, as one had 
been placed on the schooner. 

The prisoners in the forecastle were now called onto deck, 
two and two, and negro handcufifs that we had found in abun- 
dance were placed on their wTists, and, as with the prisoners from 
the cabin, each and every one was searched, and deprived of their 
arms; it was found that every man possessed some concealed 
weapon ; knives, poniards, pistols ; some placed under their shirts, 
down their backs and up their sleeves. 

When all were securely ironed, then the five slave guards were 
furnished with sheath knives for defense, and with many thanks 
sent ashore, to follow on the trail of their fellow-slaves. Then 
came the departure of the shackled prisoners; they were ordered 
to rise from ofif the deck, seven at a time, and walk the staging 
formed by the broken-down mast and rigging, with their irons 
on them, yet they experienced very little difficulty, as they were 
aided by the Portuguese mate and their two cooks, who were 
not ironed. 

The Portuguese mate was the last to depart, and he was put in 



202 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

possession of keys to unlock his companions' irons, and also a 
concealed pistol and a Spanish dagger. 

The schooner's captain procured pen, ink, and paper from the 
ship's cabin, and, using the capstan as a desk, wrote the following 
lines, as copied from the schooner's log: 

*' Captain General of Cuba: 

" Good Sir: Some 244 freed slaves have been landed on the 
north shore of your Island of Cuba; please, please see that they 
and their posterity continue in freedom, for worthy and valuable 
life has been parted with to give them their right to liberty. The 
bearer of this earnest and momentous appeal is competent, and 
will give your Honor a full history of their enslavement, cruel 
treatment, and liberation on your shore. 
*' Respectfully yours, 

'' Captain of the Schooner ' Metamora.' 

" P. S. Please excuse my ardor, but I am resolved that each 
and every one of those negroes shall retain their liberty, a liberty 
that your Honor has the power to bestow and maintain, and in 
the event of that liberty being refused, I shall lay the unrighteous 
act and situation before his Holiness Gregory XVI., Pope of 
Rome, to intervene. I continue 

" Respectfully yours." 

This letter, with instructions to deliver it to the Captain Gen- 
eral at Havana in person, if possible, was given to the trusty 
Portuguese sailor, Mr. Salmas, and time told that he performed 
his duty, and time also proved the efificiency of the captain's 
appeal. 

In a treaty with other European powers in 181 7 Spain united 
in making the traffic in slaves illegal after 1820, but the crowned 
heads and the nobility of Spain were interested in the very profit- 
able traffic, and the treaties were with Spain a dead letter, and the 
slave trade, instead of diminishing, was largely increased up to 
1834, when seizures of Spanish vessels caught in the illegal com- 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 203 

nierce^ were made, yet still the trade continued to flourish, 
when in 1835 the Spanish courts took an interest in abolishing 
the slave trade, and their action put a stop to the traffic except 
by stealth. 

Austria was the first European nation to condemn and take 
open action against the slave trade. Her Parliament appointed 
commissioners to consult other powers, and in their addresses in 
their Parliament bitterly censured and condemned Spain and 
Portugal for sanctioning and supporting the inhuman traffic in 
man. During the thirties the shipment of slaves to Brazil was 
quite extensive, as the bulk of that country was stocked with its 
now negro population during that period. The great bulk of 
slaves introduced into Brazil was by the Portuguese. During 
that period a few African slaves were quietly removed from Cuba 
and other adjacent islands, and domiciled in the Gulf States of 
North America. This continued to a small extent up to 1839. 

It was a remarkable fact that the women on board of this ship 
endured starvation, the unhealthy quarters and hardships of a 
long, rough voyage much better than did the men, and their 
deaths were but one-half of that of the men per capita. 

In time those blacks increased and multiplied astonishingly, 
and in 1864 were the parents of most all of the free blacks on the 
island. 

On examining the slave quarters after the manacled prisoners 
had been landed, the bodies of two dead men slaves were found; 
sailor Bedford and Slashed-cheek John felt sure that they must 
have died that morning, as the dead of the previous day had been 
cast overboard. The captain went below and examined them 
to see if surely dead, and reported one of them to have been dead 
some few hours, and the other within one hour, and that perhaps 
the excitement had hastened his death. The ship's dark dun- 
geon-like hold would be a miserable abode for even wild beasts. 
I can assure you, good reader, that no odorous flowers perfumed 
its air. 

The shock in beaching the ship had greatly increased her long 
leaky condition, and she was slowly but surely settling down at 



204 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

the stern, and the captain said, " Let the ship be the negroes* 
casket." * 

When searching for ship stores in the cabin and its recesses, 
six boxes of silver and some gold were found, the amount un- 
known as there was no time to count or place any value on gold 
or silver, for it was a question of life and death, not money. All 
the knowledge obtained was that each box of the casually dis- 
covered treasure was as much as one sailor desired to carry on 
deck. The silver was Spanish mixed coin, Mexican dollars, and 
French five-franc pieces in about equal portions. The captain 
said he did not desire, would not take one dollar of the money, 
but he ordered that sailor Bedford and Slashed-cheek John, who 
could talk to the Africans, should hastily hand a few dollars to 
each slave as they passed from the ship. The poor Africans had 
not an itching palm for silver, for most of them took but a small 
quantity, and some thirty to hfty did not help themselves at all 
when invited so to do, and a portion of it was given to each of the 
prisoners from the forecastle, all the officers and members of the 
crew who had been imprisoned in the cabin having helped them- 
selves liberally, not to silver, but to gold, as was discovered when 
searching them for arms, but not one dollar was taken from them ; 
there was no time or desire to secure gold. All the schooner's 
crew, the captain excepted, hastily helped themselves to silver 
from the six boxes on the deck, including Yankee Bedford, who 
said he had not even seen thirty dollars for near three years, but 
he had seen native gold and diamonds; and one-armed Golas said 
his thirty dollars of prize money from the slaveship was just the 
sum that he received from the Mexican Government for his arm, 
which he considered to be large pay, as thousands of his country- 
men had given their lives, and hundreds had given their arms, 
and never received or desired one dollar, and in addition to the 
loss of his arm he lost two of his brothers by a broadside shot 
on the Gulf the same day, who were hastily cast overboard 
with other dead, and he had in his youth lost his father whilst 
battling against Spain for his liberty, his country, and his home; 
and both of his grandparents, together with over three thousand 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 205 

other unarmed non-combatants, were slaughtered by General 
Calleja whilst fleeing from the town of Quautla in May, 1812, 
in which retreat over four thousand Mexicans were put to the 
sword. 

General Calleja in his report of the slaughter said that the dead 
bodies of the enemy covered the ground for twenty miles in ex- 
tent, and that he lost only twenty men. 

Before the town of Quautla was abandoned by its small gar- 
rison of Mexicans, and its trembling inhabitants. General Calleja 
wrote: '' We will precipitate this town and its inhabitants into the 
very center of hell, whatever exertion or fatigue it may cost us." 
Too bad that General Calleja and his army should become 
fatigued through slaying unarmed Mexicans! 

The Spanish General Calleja, like the Spanish General Wey- 
ler of Cuba, was the Nero of his day, who rejoiced and gloated 
over human blood and slaughter. 

The large number of prisoners that had caused us constant 
anxiety, being unarmed and set on shore, we immediately dis- 
patched mate Sapoles and one of the sailors in the slave captain's 
barge, to aid the sailor on board of the schooner to sail her to 
the ship's stern, where we found ample water. She was sailed 
into position in splendid style by mate Sapoles. Wounded sailor 
Bill, the three manacled prisoners, all the crew, and the body of 
sailor Jim Nelson were placed on board of her, and all sails 
ordered set. The prisoners protested vehemently against being 
taken out to sea in irons, but wounded sailor Bill answered their 
protests with a groan of pain, and pointing to the body of poor 
Jim Nelson, cold in death. 

The late scenes of resolve and energy had shifted with a ve- 
locity that would have caused a beholder's head to swim. Cook 
Ike, the schooner's timekeeper for that exciting day, reported 
that just three hours had passed since the schooner glided up to 
the slaveship's heavy wooden walls to that present time when we 
were casting ofif from her our hawser, to bid her adieu and depart 
for sea. 

All sails had just been set when the ever- watchful Sapoles ex- 



2o6 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

claimed, *' A large craft to the southeastward over our stern, 
bearing down on us, under full sail." Within a few minutes a 
shot came whizzing and struck some distance off our starboard 
bow; the intention appeared to be to bring us to. We immedi- 
ately knew that the attentive sail was a Spanish vessel of war, or 
a revenue cutter — a very small choice to us. We judged this as 
she was hugging the coast of the island, and we supposed that 
she was first attracted by the disorderly flapping topsails of the 
slavcship and her waving Spanish flag at half-mast. 

Very suspicious and singular surroundings presented them- 
selves: a sinking Spanish ship, with blood-stained decks, and 
three Spanish officers confined in irons on the schooner, to enter 
their plea against us; an unfavorable position to greet the com- 
manding stranger and risk an open interview. The thought of 
being entombed within the rock walls of the Morro or the Blanco 
castles, or perhaps executed as pirates, and our stanch and trim 
schooner confiscated, was not a pleasant thought. Then came 
the second shot in range, but it fell short. The schooner's crew 
well knew her capacity, and mentally said, fire on, come on, for 
the pennant at our masthead pointed toward the dark-blue sea. 

The armed Spanish vessel crowded on all sails and continued 
the fruitless chase in silence for some hours ; then in apparent dis- 
gust, with sails close-hauled, she tacked back to her station 
against the wind. 

When fired on by the Spaniard our reckoning, which we knew 
to be correct, placed us about five leagues north by west from 
Matanzas, Cuba, and no doubt but that the belligerent vessel had 
just parted from that port, or was hovering near it. 

The first words spoken to the schooner's captain when he 
leaped upon the slaveship's deck, were by its captain asking him 
for this same reckoning. His inquiry was instantly answered by 
the schooner's captain drawing from under his blouse a navy 
pistol, and placing its muzzle within two feet of the inquirer's 
breast and ordering him to immediately enter his ship's cabin 
without uttering a single word. 

The captain of the schooner had an act of necessity and mercy 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 207 

to perform, the cutting off of sailor Bill Brown's shattered leg, 
his second operation of that kind at sea. Over three hours had 
then passed since Bill received the wound, but notwithstanding 
the critical situation of himself and his crew at the time of the 
shooting, the captain, immediately after placing the prisoners 
under guard, procured a mattress from the schooner to lay Bill 
on, and bandages, and also some closely woven duck canvas, 
which was dipped in the grease of the slush barrel to closely and 
securely bind the wound and prevent death through the loss of 
blood. The operation was a success, and the patient expressed 
himself as relieved in part from his suffering. 
. When the Spaniard fired his two shots and was on his chase, 
the schooner's captain, with the aid of one-armed Golas and crip- 
pled Ike, the cook, both of whom had severely felt the surgeon's 
keenly wielded knife and torturing probe, was engaged in ampu- 
tating a large portion of sailor Bill Brown's leg, and securing the 
canal tubes and its arteries, to prevent his life's blood from ooz- 
ing out upon the deck. The operation proved to be a great 
success, thanks to one-armed Golas and limping Ike, the 
cook. 

As the captain and his aids stretched poor Bill out on his mat- 
tress to perform the operation of cutting off his leg, he said that 
he was not surprised at his bad luck, for on his starting out from 
his home for his first A^oyage at sea, on a Nantucket whaler, his 
good mother told him that he must keep a close watch on danger, 
for he was born at a very unlucky period; that it was at a time 
when the waning moon peered cautiously from the sky to cast its 
dim shadow on the earth ; a time that called for caution and watch- 
fulness. He said that he should have obeyed his mother, for had 
he done so he would have saved his leg and great pain, for he 
could have shot down the slave merchant the moment that he had 
sent the shot through sailor Jim Nelson's heart; but he instantly 
thought of the captain's words, that to shoot one of the slaver's 
crew might set the whole large number on us, to blot us out. 

Since morning mess it had been a busy and an exciting day on 
board of the schooner, and the bright sun had yet one-fourth of 



2o8 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

its daily course to run before it reached its fleecy couch beneath 
the horizon of the western sky, to retire for the night. The ever 
moving, active captain had not paused to quench his thirst, or 
taste food, since the morning's mess. That day's scenes and work 
on the schooner and the slaveship,with its strategic skill, were not 
yet ended. Poor unfortunate Jim Nelson was to be placed in his 
watery grave, and preparations made for the trial and disposition 
of the three prisoners on the morrow, for the captain was sailing 
the schooner to make a landing at some point on South Florida's 
everglade shore, which, by his reckoning, we would sight by 
midday of the morrow, if the then favorable wind continued. 
The crew was constantly clamoring for the execution of the 
prisoners, and Cook Ike declared that it was a hardship on him 
to cook for murderers, but all said that it would never do to haunt 
the schooner by shooting them on its deck, or hanging them 
from its yardarms, and to cast them overboard would defile the 
pure ocean. 

Departed sailor Jim Nelson was wrapped in a well-worn and 
dingy blanket, with a lo-pound shot inclosed at his feet, and laid 
him on a plank resting on the schooner's gunwale, the captain 
solemnly saying, " It is written, ' I am the Resurrection and the 
Life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. 
But some men will say. How are the dead raised up? and with 
what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is 
not quickened except it die.' And here I pray that this day, thy 
parting soul may be with Christ in Paradise." 

Then orders were given and the inner end of the plank was 
slowly raised, a plunge was heard, and that morning's active 
Jim was but a bubble in the vasty deep. Those words were heard 
on deck and in the forecastle that night — " Poor Jim! " 

The morning came with a bright southern sun; mess was eaten 
in perfect silence, an unusual occurrence on board the schooner, 
and all the crew, including George Bedford and Slashed-cheek 
John, who now took the place of lost Jim and one-legged Bill 
Brown, exhibited a look of serious resolve, and the Greek mate 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 209 

Sapoles walked the deck with a firm step that spoke his inward 
thoughts. 

The prisoners were unshackled, and took a liberal breakfast, 
and the ex-guard who had passed the musket to the slave mer- 
chant that shattered Bill's leg asked the cook if any of the wine 
from the ship's storeroom had been saved and was at hand. The 
cook replied that not a single bottle of that wine had been re- 
moved from its storeroom on the ship; that at the report of its 
discovery the captain forbade one bottle to be brought on deck 
or opened below decks; that a portion of it might be drugged, 
and to give it a wide berth, for it was dangerous at all times, and 
especially so when a few clear heads were to decide the fate of 
near three hundred ; that our chase — the Spanish armed vessel — 
could now enjoy her find, if it yet remained above the ocean's 
waters. 

The morning was clear and pleasant, the wind favorable. The 
captain ordered all hands on deck, and a reef taken in the sails. 
He then called for a seat to be brought up from the cabin. Then 
he requested all hands and the cook to step aft, except sailor 
Ben, whom he directed to watch at the bow, and be prepared for 
any and all duty. 

He then took his seat as judge of the court that was to try the 
prisoners, who were then aft reclining on their mattresses that 
had been removed with them from the ship for their comfort, 
against the wishes of the crew. One-legged Bill, the chief wit- 
ness for the prosecution, lay on his mattress near by. 

The judge announced court to be in session, and proposed that 
the schooner's crew select one of their number as prosecuting 
attorney, and that the defendants select one of their number to 
defend them; that it was with them a question of life or death; 
that no precipitancy was called for. One-legged Bill proposed 
Sapoles, the Greek, as attorney for the prosecution, and all the 
crew said, " So be it." To the surprise of all, the prisoners 
selected Yankee Bedford, saying they were pleased with his talk 
on law to the English officers of a man-of-war, on the African 
coast. 



2 10 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Tlie slave shackles had been removed from the prisoners' arms 
previous to their morning meal, and the court announced its de- 
sire to proceed with the case. The Greek prosecuting attorney 
stated that he would prove to the court the fact that the prisoners 
were engaged in the African slave trade, in violation of law, and 
liad cruelly caused the death of many slaves, and that one of 
their number, aided by the others, had taken the life of sailor 
Jim Nelson, and deprived sailor Bill Brown of a leg in an at- 
tempt to take his life. *' This statement we are fully prepared to 
substantiate." 

Then came forward the defendants' attorney, sailor George. 
It was soon discovered that the schooner, in picking up the odd, 
uncouth George Bedford had caught a Tartar. He informed the 
court that he had no preliminary talk to make, but entered a gen- 
eral denial of all the charges entered against his clients, and re- 
quested separate trials. Attorney Sapoles objected to this in a 
telling talk, and the court sustained his objections, and ordered 
the witnesses for the prosecution to be called and sworn. 

One-legged sailor Bill, as he lay on his mattress, was the first 
witness called on to be sworn to tell the truth, but the prisoners, 
through their attorney, objected to risking their lives through 
oaths taken on a Protestant Bible. The court desired to ease 
their minds on that point, and suggested to swear them on the 
cross, as the schooner possessed no other Bible. Then came the 
question of the witness' knowledge and his appreciation of the 
cross, and Mr. Bedford closely questioned him on the subject of 
the cross and his belief. He finally said he knew nothing about 
the cross spoken of, but he knew all about the ship's crosstrees. 
When asked by the court if he ever took an oath, he answered 
"many of them," but he and all other sailors, when sincerely 
pledging themselves to perform or tell the truth to be believed, 
they always swore by Neptune, the son of Saturn, the god of the 
sea, or by the goddess Diana, or Nereid, the daughter of Nereus, 
and they always truly spoke. Upon this statement all expressed 
themselves satisfied, and sailor Bill qualified, and also sailor Sam 
and Cook Ike. The testimony of all three was a repetition of 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 211 

what I have here recorded. It came out on trial that the sfuard 
who passed the gun to shoot off sailor Bill's leg was a relative of 
the slave merchant and one-tenth owner of the ship and slaves, 
and that near one hundred slaves had died on the long and stormy 
voyage from want, and had been, unmourned, unshrined, cast 
overboard in the ocean. This testimony was obtained from the 
slave Slashed-cheek John, and after the trial confirmed by sailor 
Bedford, who feelingly said corpse after corpse was dashed into 
the waves, corpse after corpse, for many days, but on the plead- 
ing of the defendants' counsel, the court ruled all this slave 
cruelty and action out of the evidence and the crimes of the 
prisoners, and only took action on acts of the previous day to the 
trial then in progress. 

Upon this ruling by the court. Prosecuting Attorney Sapoles 
plead that the whole three prisoners merited death, that they were 
all dc facto murderers, with ])remeditated malice aforethought: 
that their every act exhibited animus fnrandi, and that every ac- 
tion, every word of their attorney Mr. Bedford, on both vessels 
and before this court, proved him to be an anguis in herba. He 
then floated off into deep water, and referred the court to Plato, 
Cicero, Socrates, and Sancho Panza as authority, upon which the 
court requested the Greek attorney to please to come down a few 
centuries, and also to talk the American language so that the 
cook and the court could understand him. 

The Greek, who was warmed up to a red heat, straightened 
himself up to his full height of six feet, and with vehemence ex- 
claimed, " It is de auctoritate mihi conuuissa. I shall perform my 
duty seriatim, and that duty is to see that the three prisoners are 
convicted and executed. I have and shall continue secundum 
artcm. If the court cannot fathom my pleadings it is no fault of 
mine." 

After vividly picturing the prisoners' great crimes he gave way 
to the defendants' counsel, sailor George Bedford, who had no 
big Latin in his pleadings to astonish the court and his hearers, 
but only plain, earnest, well-timed American talk. 

He plead that the schooner's crew had no legal authority to 



212 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

board the ship with arms and confiscate the ship, its cargo, and 
put its officers in irons, and then form a court and try them for 
their lives; that he had shown the court that the shooting was not 
on the high seas, but in soundings within sight of the shore if it 
had been a clear morning, and therefore, if a crime had been com- 
mitted, the land had jurisdiction — the land of Spain. That the 
killing of sailor Jim Nelson was an accident, that the intention of 
the prisoner Mariena was to shoot the captain of the schooner, 
and if Jim had not sHpped in behind the captain, he would not 
have been shot, and that the second shot fired, that shattered 
Bill Brown's leg, was also an accidental shot; that the intention 
was also to fire on the captain, but in his haste to shoot and re- 
treat into the ship's cabin, he pressed the gun's trigger too 
soon, and shattered sailor Jim's leg. Those are known facts to 
all then on deck, and have here been clearly proven, as well as 
admitted by the prisoners, and taking life through accident is not 
a capital offense; that the schooner's whole proceedings in attack- 
ing the ship's officers and crew and wrecking the ship were clearly 
in violation of the well-known laws of Admiralty. Then fol- 
lowed a learned defense of the prisoners, after which the court 
announced that it had with great care weighed all the testimony, 
and had arrived at what it hoped was a righteous verdict, and as 
the Florida coast was reported on board to be within one hour's 
sail, the court would pronounce sentence on the prisoners. 

The court then with great emotion said that the decree of the 
court was that the captain, and the part-owner and guard of the 
slaveship. names unknown, as they declined to give them, be 
landed on the uninhabited everglade shore of South Florida, with 
two days' rations from the schooner, and from there travel to 
habitations or perish in the swamps; that the prisoner Mariena 
be taken on shore at the same time, in charge of three execution- 
ers armed with three heavily charged muskets, and there be im- 
mediately shot to death, and left for his two companions to bury, 
if they so desired. 

Upon this announcement disappointment was plainly visible on 
every countenance, the prisoners' counsel, sailor Bedford, in- 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 213 

eluded. Slashed-cheek John was indignant at the lenity of the 
court; he had constantly claimed that, as soon as they had secured 
all the crew and officers by the slave handcuffs found on board 
of the ship, that every Spaniard should have been cast into the 
ocean, where they had placed thrice their number of blacks. All 
claimed that the whole three prisoners merited death. 

The schooner was anchored near the shore, the irons taken off 
the two exiled prisoners, and three volunteers called for to shoot 
the slave merchant Mariena; every man on board presented him- 
self except one-legged Bill. Two of the original sailors of the 
schooner and Cook Ike were known to be brave, and good shots, 
and were selected as the executioners, who, with the prisoners 
and the captain in command, made a landing. 

We had no shovel or spade on board for the two exiles to 
bury their dead companion with, but we had the blades of two 
broken oars, that with labor would make a hole in the alluvial 
of Florida's marshy peninsula, if the exiles thought proper to 
give their companion in crime a grave. 

The landing was made and the shackles removed from off the 
condemned murderer, and he was stationed a few paces from his 
pale-faced and distressed-looking companions. His breast was 
bared by slashing the fine and costly clothing from off it with a 
keen-edged sheath knife. A large tattooed cross of many colors, 
with a winged angel kneeling before it, was revealed upon his 
breast; a piece of his red Spanish sash, six inches square, was 
pinned to a fragment of his clothing over his rapidly beating 
heart, as a target to aim at. The executioners, with well- 
charged and unerring muskets, were filed before him at a distance 
of ten paces. The captain looked at his old Swiss watch, and 
slowly and calmly said, " Prisoner, your time in this world is 
limited to just ten minutes; the cause of taking off is your own." 
Then raising his right hand, and looking far above, he in a sub- 
dued voice said, " And may a crowned Omnipotence have mercy 
on your soul." The condemned for some three minutes, about 
one-third of his allotted lifetime, stood silent as a statue of 
grief, his eyes fixed upon the earth; he then slowly lifted 



214 A LIFE'S VOYAGE 

them from their downward gaze. There was a wild fear 
in his eyes; a shade of gloom swept over his strong, sal- 
low features, and in a piteous, subdued voice, asked permission 
to kneel whilst the leaden messengers of death entered his heart. 
This act told on the captain's feelings, and the humble request 
was immediately granted. Upon dropping heavily on his knees, 
to be shot to death, he in a voice of resignation requested a cross 
to grasp in death, and asked if anyone present had one. One of 
the executioners gruffly said, " You have now a cross upon your 
breast to die with." The condemned meekly said, " I have dis- 
graced that cross." This act of resignation and desire to mend 
during the last three minutes of his life told on the features of the 
captain, who said, '' I have a cross given to me by a monk whilst 
a prisoner in Sicily." The captain stepped up to the kneeling 
slave-dealer, and said, '' Bad man! if left to God's decree, could 
you upon this cross pledge yourself to abandon the traffic in man 
and slavery? " '' Yes, captain," said the Spaniard, " I will swear 
it." " You must net swear! Holy Writ says, ' Swear not at all.' 
Will you so vow? " Then like an aspen leaf the kneeling Span- 
iard shook, as in his hand the cross he took to vow before the 
great Supreme that he would nevermore in slavery deal. The cap- 
tain then said, " Rise, and be a man and a Christian." Upon this 
unlooked-for and leiiient order, the enraged executioners set up 
a howl of indignation, shouting, '' Never, never! " and the words 
were echoed back by all on board the schooner, '' Never! " Then 
the three muskets were brought to a bearing on the Spaniard's 
heart. The captain drew his navy pistol from its belt, and sprung 
in front of the leveled muskets, and in a voice that caused the sea- 
fowl to flutter in the air, exclaimed " Ground arms! " and they 
immediately went down with a crash. 

Then the captain said to the late prisoners, " Depart, and keep 
the North Star before you, and the noonday sun upon your 
backs, and within two days of active walking northward, you will 
strike the white man's home, but when you meet the Seminole, 
treat him with kindness. You have gold saved from your ship, 
now in your possession; give the Seminole Indian a small piece 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 215 

and you will also meet with kindness, and when you ford or swim 
lagoons and bayous, keep a weather eye upon the alligators; they 
are sly and dangerous, and the bulk of gold you carry has too 
great a weight to swim under; it will take you to the bottom. 
Keep the North Star before you, and you will reach a settled 
country." After this advice, the dejected three scudded of¥ with- 
out any formality. 

Then the captain said to the indignant executioners, " Men, we 
now go on board to weigh anchor and set sail for New Orleans; 
our stores and water are at a low ebb. We had to deal them out 
too largely to the starving negroes on the ship." 

Great dissatisfaction existed on board of the schooner on ac- 
count of not carrying out the death sentence of the prisoners, 
but the captain was equal to the situation, and he swayed the 
crew as the moon sways the tide, and we spread our snow-white 
canvas like the brooding wings of a cherub and glided over the 
heaving bosom of the Gulf. 

When we were under way, all was silent as the grave; not a 
voice was heard for the space of full one hour. Every man on 
board was absorbed in thought, which appeared to be a deep 
thought of sorrow. They could not realize, as they afterward 
explained, the final result of the ship's capture; the warm flow- 
ing life-blood of poor Jim Nelson; the shackling of the large 
number of prisoners with their own negro irons ; the dropping of 
the two drowned negro girls into the ocean as food for sharks; 
the sad parting with dead Jim Nelson, and the stirring and ex- 
citing court trial; all to end without due justice to the three 
guilty prisoners. 

Cook limping Ike, the self-appointed timekeeper for all on 
board, broke the long silence by exclaiming, " Boys, it is now 
just thirty-six hours to a minute since Mate Sapoles sighted that 
slaveship. I name the time because it to me seems to have been 
at least a month." 

When the silence was broken, every man opened out without 
stint of words on sailor Bedford, on account of his strong plea 
for the acquittal of the murderers. George Bedford, an unknown 



2i6 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

African adventurer, was not a witling, and with earnestness 
replied that had he done less in his defense of the prisoners, then 
he would have not performed his duty as their openly selected 
counsel; that he had, when voluntary executioners were called 
for, responded and offered to shed the blood that he had just re- 
cently endeavored to stanch. " I now desire to say that Mate 
Sapoles, notwithstanding that he treated me with great severity 
during the trial and the court called him to moderation, he merits 
great credit for his pleadings. I have lounged around the Boston 
Courthouse when men of wide renown swayed the court and 
jury by their eloquence, as does the wind sway the willow's 
branches. I have, with great attention, seen, heard, and fath- 
omed the deep thoughts and expressive words of the big fish of 
the land, issued from off the rostrums of gilded halls. I think I 
have heard many good talks, but I have to say that I never be- 
fore saw as good a talk as that of sailor Sapoles. It was a talk 
that had to be seen as well as heard, and Sapoles is the only man 
I ever saw stand on the earth, or on the waters of the earth, and 
stir up the heavens, and cause the stars to gaze down with aston- 
ishment upon the speaker." Thus spoke sailor Bedford. 

We had favorable wind and weather, and the two recent addi- 
tions to the crew, George Bedford and Slashed-cheek John, the 
latter, who was better acquainted with paddling a canoe on the 
African rivers and its ocean billows than sailing an American 
schooner on the Gulf of Mexico, yet the African made a prog- 
ress in his duty as a sailor, and in speaking the American lan- 
guage, that astonished all on board. Those two recent additions 
to the crew filled the stations made vacant by the death of Jim 
Nelson and one-legged Bill, and gave time for the two recruits 
to report their experience on the sea — a duty that every sailor ex- 
pects to perform. Sailor Bedford, when requested by his ship- 
mates and the captain to give them his sea and African experi- 
ence, said he would willingly do so, in a plain way, and the best 
he could, but that he had not passed through some of the stirring 
scenes and events that older sailors had; that the past two days 
were his most active two days at sea. Then he said, ** My two 




INDIAN CHIEF KEOKUK. 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 217 

first voyages were before the mast of a fishing smack out of Bos- 
ton's port, at wages of nine dollars per month. I then shipped 
from the same port on board of a merchant brig, at fourteen 
dollars per month, bound for Cadiz, the capital of a province in 
Spain of that name." 

Upon being asked by the captain, who had always greatly 
desired to know the world and its past history, to give us a 
description of Cadiz, with its history, so far as he had obtained it, 
sailor Bedford said, " I was greatly pleased with that city and its 
history as handed down by tradition and existing history; its 
bright, clear, stone houses, with its over six miles of ancient walls 
of stone that surround it — walls placed there centuries past, to 
hold in check an enemy who did not possess great guns. I ad- 
mired its clean, narrow streets, and cheerful, smiling citizens; 
its very extensive commerce, and the flags of all nations waving 
over the waters of its harbors. It exports vast quantities of fruit, 
glass, olive oil, and wine. 

" Cadiz is one of Europe's most ancient cities, having been 
built over three hundred years before the plat where now stands 
Rome was staked and platted for a town. This was eleven hun- 
dred years before Christ. Cadiz has been owned and governed 
by the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Goths, Moors, and 
was captured by the Spaniards in 1263; then in 1596 it was cap- 
tured, pillaged, and a large portion of it was burned by Eng" 
land's Lord Essex. 

" Marks of Lord Essex's and French vandalism are now visible 
in many quarters. Cadiz, for a long series of years, was the main 
import and export city of Spain's South American provinces, 
which were chiefly transported by a small class of light-tonnage 
vessels, of the same class used in 14Q2 by Columbus, in his ex- 
ploration to discover a new world. Their lack of capacity had to 
be made up by numbers, consequently a New York and Brooklyn 
ferry was operated between Cadiz and Spain's South American 
provinces. In 1700, and years thereafter, Holland far surpassed 
Germany in her trade and commerce, and England was con- 
tending with Holland for the supremacy, and it was through 



2i8 A. LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Holland that England procured her Venezuelan possessions; 
Holland and England, for a long period, were the leading ship- 
owners of the world; they used vessels of a far greater tonnage 
than did Spain, but Spain, when in control, monopolized the 
commerce of her colonies, and if ever a people grew proud, and 
fattened from the toil of the weak, that people was the Spaniards 
in colonial days. " ' 

" Spain is the most southern portion of Europe; with its Pyre- 
nees, Mediterranean, its Aragon and Castile, possessed an inter- 
esting history — a history unknown to a large majority of sailors; 
a history that reads as does a romance. 

'' Spain being separated from Africa only by Gibraltar's narrow 
straits, here, in 218 before Christ, entered the great African Na- 
poleon, Hannibal, with his African troops and his staff officers, 
full-blooded Africans, but he selected several generals and some 
troops from the Rhodians, the Phoenicians, and the Iberians of 
Spain, and there procured arms and military stores, and after 
long and weary marches, and great hardships and many battles, 
his army entered Italy, to unfurl his black flag, and cause Rome 
to quake and tremble through his many conquests. 

** Mahommedan rule had its sway in Spain, and Spanish kings 
and princes became vassals. But in 1131 Mahommedan rule was 
blotted out by the combined Christian forces of Navarre, Aragon, 
Castile, and Leon, on the plains of Tolosa. 

*' Then Carthage and Rome struck a telling blow at Spain, 
which was followed up by Augustus Caesar, and proud Spain 
sank from greatness to become a Rornan province, and she ciast 
away the Crescent and adopted the Christian religion. A period 
noted for its unparalleled wrongs and cruelty took place of the 
Crescent's rule of right and justice. 

" Spain had been under the rule of the Goths, the Moors, and 
Romans previous to 718 a. d. and the Cross was pitted against 
and made war on the Crescent outside of Spain's borders at a 
vSst cost of life and treasure to Spain. Then came a peasant's 
grandson of the little isle of Corsica, Joseph Bonaparte, to &it on 
the throne of Ferdinand the Great, for over five years. '■■■■'■- 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 219 

" A rule of extremity and cruelty has ever existed in Spain's 
territory since Mohammedan's rule; her sword was never 
sheathed, and here Rome reaped her richest harvest in her 
aggressive days. 

"Spain's home territory embraces an area of 196,125 square 
miles, equal to 125,552,000 acres, including England's Gibraltar 
This gives Spain a smaller territory than is embraced in our 
States of Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa,— as Missouri has an area 
of 67,375 square miles, Kansas an area of 78,840 square miles, and 
Iowa an area of 55,046 square miles,— but her island colonies add 
117,280 square miles to her territory." Thus spoke sailor Bed- 
ford on board the schooner " Metamora." The captain and the 
crew were very thankful to sailor Bedford for his valuable histori- 
cal information, collected from records and traditions on the 
ground where it was created. The captain said that sailor Bed- 
ford was a more valuable prize than would the slaveship have 
been were its main hold to have been filled with gold, for on the 
ocean the gold would not possess a greater value than the same 
bulk of sand on the tide-washed ocean's beach; that it was knowl- 
edge and intellect that elevated man above the beasts of the 
plains, and placed him within the ranks of the gods. 

Sailor Bedford continued his momentous history: " After I 
had passed a few months in Cadiz, the brig ' Pastora ' was fitted 
out for the African slave trade. I was very desirous to visit the 
almost unknown interior of Africa to gain a knowledge of its dark 
regions and history. I shipped for this purpose before the mast 
of the ' Pastora,' at fifteen dollars per month, eight of it to be paid 
to me on anchoring on Africa's coast, and the payment of the 
eight dollars was made as contracted for. But I had not made 
the voyage for the money I was to receive; I had long desired to 
reach the dark and almost unknown regions of the South. I 
did not intend to return with the cargo of slaves, but to make 
friends of the native blacks, and gain some knowledge, if pos- 
sible, of the people and their country, and to do this, I resolved 
to J3e one of them in every action, and gain their confidence. It 
is three years within a few days since I shipped from Cadiz. On 



220 LA LIFE'S VOYAGE. 



i^i^^^i^g^ 



our first day in Africa, 1 saw some of the black traders from the 
interior, and made them some presents of brass buckles, 
brooches, and buttons, to the value of about thirty cents, 
and visited a camp of some forty, near our landing. I had col- 
lected valuable information from both blacks and whites during 
my stay in Cadiz, and with the little money I possessed purchased 
an extremely small outfit, but sufficient to pay my way in Africa, 
with charity added, to support me over three years. When the 
second night arrived I bid the slave brig adieu, and struck out 
for the interior. I was kindly treated, and was passed from tribe 
to tribe, as I requested, and lived in communities who had never 
seen a white man; after over 2j years in the interior, I again 
entered the Guinea region, where I had spent my first month in 
Africa very agreeably, and collected valuable information from 
its king, Big Lion, and to whom I was greatly indebted for my 
success and safety during my distant journeys and long stay in 
the interior; but when I arrived in Big Lion's kingdom, one of 
the best governed, and then the strongest in Africa, I found all 
in confusion and on the point of a civil war. My once friend, the 
king, was dead, and his queen was almost immediately married 
to his brother, that rumor whispered was the cause of his death, 
which caused an ill feeling to exist in the nation. I thought- 
lessly visited the grave of my once friend, and expressed sorrow 
for his departure from life, and spoke to them in their own lan- 
guage of the king's great wisdom and goodness. 

" But, alas! I committed a great error; I had taken sides with 
the departed, had extolled the late king, and thereby depreciated 
the then king, his brother, and made myself a partisan in the 
feud. My talk and actions were reported to the king and queen, 
who ordered me to be immediately brought before them. Two 
of the king's guards, carrying long spears, bound my arms fast 
and ordered me to march before them to the tribunal. The king 
and the queen spoke some words together, upon which the queen 
thought the safest and the best way to dispose of me was to cut 
my head ofif, but the king thought that if they set me loose, and 
ordered me into the interior beyond his domain, I might be of 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 221 

some use to him by annoying and distressing his enemies. The 
queen and all his advisers said it was a happy thought. Then I 
was relieved from the willow withes that bound my arms, and 
every piece of the well-worn and scanty clothing that I possessed 
was taken from ofif me; I was given about one yard of bark mat- 
ting, and ordered to depart immediately. I traveled about one 
mile to where an old couple lived that I had seen on my first slip- 
ping away from the Cadiz slave brig. They expressed great joy at 
seeing me, after near three years had passed. They were stanch 
friends of the old departed king, and informed me that a slave- 
ship was anchored in a bay at no great distance, and piloted me 
to its moorings, after giving me the odd clothing that I now wear, 
which they had picked up in a mass of wreckage on the beach 
some years previous, and had cut off the clothing such portions 
as they desired, leaving and kindly giving me the balance, which 
I now have on me. 

" I visited the slaveship, and when the captain learned that I 
had, during my stay in Africa, picked up two somewhat differ- 
ent languages of the natives, they were anxious to employ me to 
aid them in trading and purchasing negroes, but did not want 
me as a sailor. They proposed to pay me twenty dollars for my 
work on shore, but for some cause did not desire me on the 
homeward voyage; I refused his ofifer, as after my rough ex- 
perience of that same day I desired to reach the United States 
once more, and visit my Uncle Bedford, a merchant on Bienville 
Street of New Orleans, who had written me when at Cadiz to call 
and take a berth with him. The slaveship finally agreed to give 
the twenty dollars for the work on shore and the voyage; to what 
port they would not name, but I knew it must be on the North 
Atlantic, and I desired just at that period to ship from the South 
Atlantic, pay or no pay. 

" We used up two weeks in getting our black cargo on board, 
as two contractors were short in stock. I found that ship and its 
officers well-known on the slave coast and in the market; this 
was its fourth voyage in the trade, and in my presence it made 
contracts for its fifth cargo. 



222 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

" On the day we set sail, and but a few hours before that 
event, an occurrence took place that caused me to be disliked by 
all of the officers of the ship, save the second mate, a Portuguese. 
At the time spoken of, some thirty Africans, all young men, 
slowly approached the beach. The slaver's officers and guards 
knew that this arrival was to take place, for they were in waiting. 
Four of the number were seized by the others, pressed to the 
ground, and tightly bound, hand and feet; the ship's boat was at 
the shore; the bound negroes were hurriedly rushed on board. 
I immediately saw that one of the four was the son of the dead 
king, a young man that had acted kindly to me through instruct- 
ing me in some African words that I was able to call his atten- 
tion to. 

" I plead to the slave merchant and the captain for his free- 
dom; this greatly enraged them. The four blacks were unbound 
and thrust down into the slave quarters. Anchor was weighed, 
and sails set for the North Atlantic Ocean. Within one hour, 
through carelessness I understood, we were run into by a vessel 
that stove in our forward gunwale. I was at the time below, and 
never understood what by or who by. This crash caused leaks 
near the water line, that called for much pumping. To aid in 
this work, and to act as an interpreter, in giving direction to the 
large number of slaves on board, especially as they had com- 
menced dying oiY, I got the old king's son, the prince, the privi- 
lege of remaining and working at the pumps, as I knew he 
would die below decks. One of the Spanish cooks named him 
Slashed-cheek John, because his cheeks had been slashed or cut 
in his infancy, as you all have observed. It is an African mark 
of royalty. 

" Disaster after disaster stood in our course; after being out at 
sea three days, a tempest of great velocity and violence carried 
away two of our sails, and parted many of our stays, and sprung 
and shattered the foremast down to the deck, and drove us off 
our course and back a great distance, as the tempest continued 
in its fury for three days, and with its last efforts to destroy us it 
drove the ship on shoals, where we stuck solid and stationary fgr 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 223 

four days. Land was in sight through the ship's glass, which 
the captain said was the Island of Annoleon, lying off the coast 
of Guinea. 

" The officers were secretly consulting about abandoning the 
ship, but by what means I could not devise, as we had lost two of 
our three boats in the violent gale, we had but one small boat 
that we called the captain's barge, the same boat that we used 
as the cable-clad breastwork, when we captured the ship. What 
disposition was to be made of the large crew and the some five 
hundred negroes I could not understand. 

" At this juncture the Portuguese mate, with whom I had gone 
aloft to pass ofT the time, called my attention to a change in the 
action of the ship; I then noted the same action, came down onto 
the deck, where one of the cooks informed me that he was satis- 
fied that the officers were plotting to use all spare spars and rig 
a small raft with oars and sail, and in connection with the small 
boat abandon the ship, and endeavor to reach the island. 

"At this juncture, without notice to anyone, I threw oflf my 
clothing and let myself down into the ocean, and hastily found my 
way beneath the ship, a sufficient distance in a few moments' 
time to discover that a suction or an under current was fast 
moving the sand and alluvial from beneath the ship's keel. 
Upon this information, a sail was placed in position to receive the 
light quartering wind then blowing, which slowly moved us back 
and out of the alluvial bed, where we had been confined for four 
days. To the joy of all we parted from the bar. Then in time 
came long calms and reverse winds. The usual quantity of pro- 
visions and water was reduced, to soon be reduced again; then 
came sickness and many deaths among the slaves, and corpse 
after corpse was received by the waves. 

" In council the very morning that we sighted this schooner, 
it had been decided in a council of the ship's officers and the 
slave-owners to cast one-half of the negroes into the ocean, to 
save the other one-half for the slave market, and, in addition to 
the slaves, the Portuguese mate and myself were to be included, 
to gave not our rations alone, but it would save them our small 



aa4 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

pay, and we were greatly feared by the owners, as we knew too 
much, and they, from the first day out from Africa, had marked 
us as unfriendly, and we had long known that our days had been 
numbered. Slashed-cheek John had prepared the slaves to be 
on the alert, even to firing the ship if necessary. 

** Respecting the want and misery on board, the two dead 
negroes found on board, and as you all know, the bulk of all the 
stores, including the barrel of oil that African John knocked the 
head out of, were consumed in some thirty minutes, and the last 
drop of water followed it, as well as the stores from your 
schooner. The day of the ship's capture by the schooner was 
the forty-third day of short allowance. 

" Whilst at mess this morning I queried with myself that if 
the ship's captain and his two companions had not been taken 
possession of by the Florida alligators, they would certainly con- 
sider their last voyage an eventful voyage." 

Slashed-cheek John told us through sailor Bedford as interpre- 
ter that the past three days were the only pleasant days that he 
had seen since he left Africa, that he had resolved to escape from 
slavery the first opportunity, by seizing some white man's ele- 
phant and fleeing to the jungles and end his life or perhaps soon 
be eaten up by lions. John supposed that all countries were like 
his Africa, and had its elephants and its lions. Sailor Bed- 
ford told him that he would not find elephants to ride on or lions 
to eat him up in Cuba or America, but that he would find swamps 
and mountains in Cuba, and canebrake jungles and everglade 
flats in America to hide himself in, but that at all those neglected 
and uninviting points of Nature's work, he would find himself 
preceded by some escaped African, strategical slaves. 

Slashed-cheek John continued by saying that " on the day that 
I was seized, bound, and with my three kind cast down into the 
ship's hold, where I found several hundred Africans from the 
interior; I knew many of them, and many others I had almost 
daily seen. I was deceived by my uncle, my dead father's 
brother, and my mother, who requested me and my three kind to 
take my uncle's soldiers and visit the Spanish slaveship, and 



THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE AFRICAN PRINCE. 225 

receive money and goods for my uncle from the ship; not know- 
ing that we were already sold at a small price to get us out of 
Africa, and that price was paid over to the soldiers' commander 
as soon as we were cast into the ship's hold. Thus was treachery 
used to place me in a life of slavery." 

African John was, without doubt, a remarkable man to belong 
to the then considered lowest grade of the African race, the 
Congo negroes. 

After the inspiration created by George Bedford's interesting 
history of his extensive travels, and the kind treatment and re- 
spect for him, with the exception of his last two days in Africa, 
during which he was stripped of all his clothing, and over one 
hundred diamonds, many of them very valuable, and native gold 
of a bulk to be an incumbrance was taken from him. 

All on board of the schooner, the captain included, desired to 
visit Africa's dark regions, not for gold and diamonds, but to see 
and know, and to be able to talk of Africa and the world with the 
familiarity that could and did sailor Bedford talk. 

We were at this period sailing to enter the Mississippi River. 
It was a necessity to find suitable quarters for our patient one- 
legged Bill, who required both quiet and constant care, and to 
replenish our ship stores and water, which had been reduced by 
dealing them out to the slaveship's perishing negroes, and we 
had added one more to our crew by taking on African John. 

We had a favorable wind, and we entered Pass a Loutre of the 
Mississippi just sixty-eight hours from the time that we hoisted 
our sails near Cuba's beach and when we were fired on by the 
Spanish craft, and also counting in the time consumed in mak- 
ing a landing near Shark Bay on Florida's peninsula, to execute 
the slave merchant and murderer. 

The pilots of the Mississippi passes pronounced our sailing an 
extraordinary run for the then wind and weather, and when con- 
trasted with three entries from Havana, Cuba, a shorter distance 
and from ten to fourteen hours' longer time. 

On entering the river we were in hopes of procuring poor one- 
legged Bill a home, and also of procuring the small amount of 



226 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

stores that we required to carry us to Vera Cruz, our port of 
entry, as we did not desire to enter the port of New Orleans 
and explain to the customhouse officials the cause of entering 
their port, but at that period the pilot station known as the 
Balieze was short of the class of stores that the schooner desired, 
and as respecting sailor Bill they said there was no demand there 
for one-legged men, but as the man was a sailor. Dr. McFarlin 
at New Orleans would willingly take him into his hospital at the 
cost of Uncle Sam. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

CHALMETTE'S battlefield ROBERT FULTON's DAYS THE 

SKELETON OF THE SCHOONER's CREW ARRESTED AS PIRATES 
DEPARTURE FROM ST. LAWRENCE RIVER. 



W 



E then tacked for New Orleans. When we arrived off the 
site of Jackson's and Pakenham's battleground, the 
light wind that had prevailed became a calm, and as we had no 
desire to enter the port of New Orleans, we made a landing on 
the old battleground, and procured from the proprietor of a vege- 
table garden a conveyance to move one-legged Bill to Dr. Mc- 
Farlin's hospital. The captain escorted him and found open 
doors at the doctor's, and the doctor on duty. Bill was passed 
in on his stretcher, a door taken from the slaveship's cabin; the 
doctor hastened to his side, and without a single word to anyone 
said to his assistant, " This man must be immediately bled." 
The captain informed the doctor that he had very recently been 
bled almost to death; that he had within five days lost a leg; that 
he required rest after a land journey of some miles, nothing more. 
The doctor said he mistook the patient's situation. 

Bleeding, in the thirties, was the remedy for all ailments. 
When the doctor was informed that Bill's leg had been cut off 
by a sea-captain, he sharply replied, " Then a second amputation 
is sure to be necessary; singular that some people can never 
learn. Why was not the patient brought to the hospital?" 
When told the " why," he said he must try to save the sailor's 
life. One-legged Bill at this point suggested that he would be 
thankful for his noonday mess. 

At that moment Dr. Stone of the Charity Hospital called to 
inquire respecting an injured sailor whom he had turned over to 
the payroll of Uncle Sam. Dr. Stone, on seeing sailor Bill, ^nd 

?a7 



228 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

being told that the operation was performed at sea, some five 
days previously, he desired to see the wound and how the opera- 
tion was progressing. The bandages were removed, and, 
although such a few days had passed since the operation, the 
upper portion of the swallow tail or flap-cut, had commenced to 
heal splendidly, and all was in a very healthy condition, and Dr. 
Stone, an eminent physician, said the operation was somewhat 
different from his mode, but that it was splendidly performed, 
even the bandaging, which was an important part of the task, 
and when the whole process of the work, the securing of the 
arteries and the instruments used in the operation were named, 
the three doctors expressed their astonishment, and Dr. Mc- 
Farlin's assistant said that he should, if all was a success, report 
the case to his Vienna city. The doctors were told that the 
surgical instruments used were a keen-edged dirk knife taken 
from a Spaniard, and a small sash saw found in a ship carpenter's 
tool chest, and a sail or canvas needle, heated and slightly bent 
at the point, a sea-bass fishhook, heated and partially straight- 
ened to hook up the arteries to tie them. 

At this point Dr. McFarlin exclaimed: ''All, all, everything, 
every act in this case, unprofessional, unprofessional!" but his 
Austrian assistant requested those instruments that he might send 
them to a Vienna institute with his report of the operation, and 
the result, when the final result was known. 

After two days the captain visited Dr. McFarlin's hospital 
to see one-legged Bill, who had suffered so much for slavery, 
and to present to the Austrian the rude surgical instruments. 
He found sailor Bill's spirits and condition away above par. Dr. 
McFarlin declared that he was bound to produce a splendid 
stump out of the badly botched amputation of the sailor's leg. 
A final adieu was bidden to poor sailor Bill, and the captain with 
sorrow departed for the schooner. 

When the captain arrived at the schooner, he there found a 
gentleman with his team and driver. He said that his name was 
Palfrey; that he was a cotton broker and resided in New Orleans; 
that he had journeyed from that city to take a look at the old 



CHALMETTE'S BATTLEFIELD. 229 

battleground; that he had not visited it for over ten years. On 
account of the great interest he took in viewing every point and 
appeared to be measuring distances with his eyes, he was asked 
if he was not engaged in the battles on that field; he with great 
earnestness and interest replied that he was. All were anxious 
to hear from an actor of that day. Then Mr. Palfrey said that 
the large British fleet and its renowned generals expected to 
walk in and take possession of Louisiana with little or no oppo- 
sition, for they had taken time to fully inform themselves of its 
unprotected situation here. They had even made preparations 
to organize a government, and had a printing press and type with 
them, and the form of a proclamation to issue to the people of 
the new government of Louisiana, which included our Iowa. 
Mr. Palfrey said previous to the English fleet leaving the coast 
of Florida, where they had for some time rendezvoused, they 
were in communication with and supposed that they could de- 
pend on the fealty and aid of the then renowned Lafitte, a free- 
booter and smuggler, who, with his over one hundred trained 
desperate men, were a power beyond their numbers, and who 
lived and enjoyed luxuries beyond the most wealthy. Lafitte 
was familiar with all the lakes, bays, and bayous of the Gulfs 
border. The chief spoil was Spanish merchant ships and their 
cargoes. His headquarters on the water were Barataria Bay, and 
for a long time his family home was at the then and since well- 
known lemon-colored haunted mansion overlooking the Mississ- 
ippi, in Livadis. 

When the British fleet, which carried 1000 guns and the flower 
of the British army, and over 12,000 strong, was off Lake Borgne, 
it was surprised to receive a well-directed broadside from a lone 
craft, which ran up the American flag as she issued her iron hail, 
to be repeated with damage to the enemy. Lafitte commanded 
this lone craft; the final result of Lafitte's action was beneficial 
to General Jackson's army, as it delayed the enemy and had its 
effect. After this bold attack at sea, the indomitable Lafitte, 
with most of his men, joined General Jackson's forces on the 
land. 



23© A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Mr. Palfrey pointed out the positions of the combating armies 
on Chahiiette's battlefield, the visible lines of the American 
breastworks, the movements of the enemy; its position and that 
of their General Pakenham when he fell, struck by a grapeshot, 
and yet after his fall the ranks passed on as a moving, working 
machine, to their deaths, before the unerring Kentucky rifles. 

Mr. Palfrey said it was a great error about Jackson's breast- 
works being composed of cotton bales. '' We had some bales on 
a portion of the low earth breastworks near the center, but the 
enemy's red-hot shot set a portion of them on fire, and the blaz- 
ing fragments flew very near to our powder kegs, and many of the 
bales were cast down as dangerous and their vacancy filled with 
earth; no cotton was produced on or near the battleground; this 
cotton that caught fire was procured from Robert Fulton's steam- 
boat * Vesuvius,' that had freighted it from Mississippi and 
upper Louisiana. All were sugar plantations here and nearby, 
and General Pakenham seized on several hundred hogsheads of 
sugar, all that he could, and placed them as breastworks, suppos- 
ing that the sugar would act as a sandbag protection, but rifle 
balls passed through the sugar, and the American cannon 
knocked it to the winds, and exposed its defenders to a volley 
that thinned their numbers. Sugar and cotton are out of place in 
a breastwork for hot shot and heavy guns." Thus spoke the 
veteran Mr. Palfrey. 

At this point Cook Ike, who had been previously posted, an- 
nounced dinner ready in the cabin, and Mr. Palfrey said he 
would dine with us, as he was a distance from home. The har- 
ness was stripped from the horses, and they were, by permission, 
placed in a not-far-distant luxuriant pasture. After the first table 
then came the second table. Cook Ike and the team driver. Ike 
that evening told the crew that he had the honor to dine with the 
best dressed and most polite gentleman on board the schooner; 
that when he passed the chocolate-colored horse-driver a dish, he 
always said, " Thank you, sir," that the captain and mate Sapoles 
had never spoken so. " If they should, then I would pack up my 
bag for shipwreck, for it would be sure to come. You fellows 



"N CHALMETTE'S BATTLEFIELD. 231 

generally say, * Bear a hand, Ike, and scull that mess quickly this 
way.' " 

After dinner had been partaken, the captain said he was very 
anxious to know the part that Fulton's steamboats had taken in 
connection with that memorable battle; that he had long since 
collected many interesting facts in connection with, and apper- 
taining to, Robert Fulton's ever active life, which he had noted 
down, and he desired to compare notes and recollections of Mr. 
Palfrey's running back to 1814, when Fulton was in active life, 
and his boats were in active service, and his life and career were 
fresh in his memory. 

Without a shadow of doubt, Fulton's diversity and usefulness 
produced from his brain will eclipse that of any man ever created 
since creation's dawn to date. 

Good reader, if this is an error, and you have within your 
mind's eye his superior in extent and diversity of true usefulness, 
hasten and set him afloat before the gaze of the world, for your 
production would create thought and a sensation such as the 
universe has never witnessed. 

• Mr. Palfrey said that without the aid of Fulton's five boats to 
transport provisions, heavy guns, and military stores, that the 
troops could not have been stationed or maintained on their bat- 
tleground, ready for combat, and that the British, if not checked 
at that favorable point, could have marched in and taken posses- 
sion of the city of New Orleans and established their government. 

I must here place on my record, in a very brief form, the birth, 
life, and death of Robert Fulton, for coming generations, just 
as Mr. Palfrey and the captain jotted it down on board of the 
schooner " Metamora." 

AN AMERICAN INVENTOR. 

Robert Fulton was born in Fulton Township, Lancaster 
County, Pennsylvania, in 1765. He possessed a natural gift as 
a genius, and at the age of seventeen years he left Lancaster 
County for. Philadelphia, where he derived a handsome income 



^3^ A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

from painting portraits and landscapes and making drawings of 
machinery. He, while there, was an intimate of Benjamin 
Franklin and other leading men of that day. 

The general idea is that Mr. Fulton was merely the inventor 
of the steam vessel or boat. This is an error; he was the in- 
ventor, and in several instances the patentee, of many very 
important and useful articles and structures. In 1794 Mr. Ful- 
ton invented and received letters patent in England for a mill to 
saw marble, for which the British Society for the Promotion of 
the Arts and Commerce presented him with their thanks and an 
honorary medal. In 1797 he likewise invented and patented an 
inclined plane for canal boats, to ascend or descend hills and ele- 
vations, as Mr. Eads since proposed for his Panama Railroad. 
In the same year he also invented and designed the first pano- 
rama ever exhibited. Tlie first exhibition was given in Paris. 
This panorama he sold to obtain the means necessary to enable 
him to try his experiments on the propulsion of vessels by steam. 
He invented the air gun, and experimented to test the difference 
between the force of air and steam. Through this air-gun ex- 
periment of Robert Fulton's, in testing the power of compressed 
air, as is well known, originated the thought and use of com- 
pressed air as a power for various useful purposes, as is now con- 
stantly done. 

He invented the torpedo now in use for blowing up vessels of 
war, and the power of his torpedo was tried by Mr. Fulton. In 
England, on the 15th of October, 1805, he blew up a strong 
Danish brig of 200 tons, which had been provided for the experi- 
ment. The vessel was anchored in Wilmer Roads, near Deal, 
within a mile of Wilmer Castle, then the residence of Mr. Pitt. 
A torpedo of 170 pounds of powder that broke and shattered her 
into pieces, and in one minute nothing was to be seen but float- 
ing fragments of a wreck. Mr. Fulton had experimented in 
France previous to this time, with like results. And afterward, 
on the 20th of July, 1807, in pursuance of an act of Congress, an 
experiment was made in the presence of a naval commission in 
New York Harbor, which fully proved the utility and power of 



ROBERT FULTON'S DAYS. 233 

his torpedo. About this period Mr. Fulton published a work 
entitled " Torpedo War, or Submarine Explosion." 

In 1797 Mr. Fulton invented and built a submarine boat in 
France. Bonaparte had then assumed power as First Consul, 
and in 1801 Mr. Fulton solicited his aid in experimenting with 
his invention. His request was immediately granted, and the 
First Consul appointed Volney, Laplace, and Monge, scientific 
men of that day, as a commission to test the merits of his inven- 
tion. Mr. Fulton had previously tested his boat and ascertained 
that he could descend into the water to any desired depth, and 
rise to the surface at pleasure, and that a small glass window in 
the bow gave him sufficient light to see his instruments 
and machinery without lamps or candles to consume the vital 
air. 

They proceeded to Brest, and there, on the 26th of July, he 
weighed anchor and hoisted his sails; his boat had one mast, a 
mainsail, and a jib. There was but a light breeze, before which 
his boat, the " Nautilus," made fair headway. It was found that 
she would tack or steer on the wind, or before it, as well as any 
common sailing boat. He struck his mast and sails, to do which 
required but three minutes, and plunged beneath the waves. 
Having reached the depth he desired, he placed two men at the 
engine, which was worked by hand, and another man at the helm, 
while he, with a barometer before him, governed the machinery 
which kept the vessel balanced between the upper and lower 
waters. He found that he had full control of the depth at his 
pleasure. The propelling engine was put in motion, and he 
found, upon coming to the surface, that he had, in about seven 
minutes, made a progress of four hundred meters, or about five 
hundred yards. He then again plunged below, turning her 
around while under water, and returned to the place of starting. 
He repeated his experiments for several days, and found that his 
craft was as obedient to her helm under water as any boat could 
be on the surface, and that the magnetic needle traversed as well 
in the one situation as in the other. 

On the 7th of August Mr. Fulton again descended the water. 



234 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

taking with him three persons and a copper globe of a cubic foot 
capacity, into which air was compressed. At the expiration of 
an hour and thirty minutes, he began to take small supplies of air 
from his reservoir for four hours. At the expiration of that time 
he came to the surface without having experienced any incon- 
venience from having been under the water. Afterward, to test 
the power and utility of his torpedo and submarine boat, the naval 
commission anchored a small shallop in the roads. He ap- 
proached her under water with a torpedo, and blew her into 
pieces. This '' diving boat," the '* Nautilus," was much admired 
at Brest for the science of conception and skill in the execution. 
Since the days of Fulton, all submarine boats or apparatus find 
their way downward to the bottom by their gravity. 

Mr. Fulton was thoroughly conversant with the philosophy of 
pneumatics. He noted the action and power of fish — whether 
large and heavy, or small — to rise to the surface of the sea or 
sink to the bottom, or suspend themselves midway without any 
apparent exertion. Many persons have since the days of Fulton 
undertaken submarine navigation, and have expended large sums 
of money, but have had to abandon it, pronouncing it one of the 
lost arts. 

In 1796 he published in London his treatise on canal naviga- 
tion, with descriptive plates, and afterward executed models of 
iron bridges, which were submitted to the British Board of Na- 
tional works, of which Sir John Sinclair was the President, and 
were approved of, and one of his bridges was erected in Wands- 
worth town and several other places. He also projected a stu- 
pendous w^ork (a Fulton cast-iron aqueduct) for canal boats 
across the Dee River, at Pontcysltee, about twelve miles south- 
west of Chester. It was placed on nineteen massive piers of 
stone, 52 feet apart, some of them 120 feet in height. The aque- 
duct was 986 feet in length, and 20 feet in width, composed of 
massive sheets of cast-iron riveted together. Experts of that 
day predicted that the cold and heat would destroy it through 
contraction and expansion, but time proved their predictions 
erroneous. 



ROBERT FULTON'S DAYS. 235 

Fulton's Steamboats. 

In September, 1807, the " Clermont," the first steamboat, and 
the first packet of the world, ran from New York to Albany, and 
continued in that trade regularly. Her engine cylinder was 
twenty-four inches in diameter, and four-feet stroke, and except 
in size and finish, there is no difiference in the principle between 
the motive power of the '* Clermont " and the splendid steam- 
ships now crossing the Atlantic and navigating our rivers. 

Mr. Fulton, in writing to Joel Barlow, Esq., of Philadelphia, 
in August, 1807, and describing the success of his first steam- 
boat trip on the Hudson, and speaking of the future importance 
of the steamboat, proceeds to say: 

" Yet I will not admit that it is as important as the torpedo 
system of defense and attack, for out of this will grow the liberty 
of the seas, an object of infinite importance to the welfare of 
America and every civilized country. But thousands of wit- 
nesses have now seen the steamboat in rapid movement, and they 
believe, but they have not seen a ship of war destroyed by a tor- 
pedo, and they do not believe. We cannot expect people in 
general to have a knowledge of physics or power of mind suffi- 
cient to combine ideas and reason from cause to efifects; but in 
case we have war, and the enemy's ships come into our water, 
if the Government will give me reasonable means of action, I will 
soon convince the world that we have surer and cheaper modes 
of defense than they are aware of. 

" Yours, etc., 

" Robert Fulton." 

An extract of a letter written by Mr. Fulton to the editor of 
the "American Citizen," September 15, 1807, says: 

" The power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved; 
and having employed much time, money, and zeal in accomplish- 
ing this work, it gives me great pleasure to see it fully answer my 



2^6 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

expectations. It will give a cheap and quick conveyance to the 
merchandise on the Mississippi, Missouri, and other great rivers 
which are now laying open their treasures to the enterprise of our 
countrymen, and although the prospect of personal emolument 
has some inducement to me, yet I feel infinitely more pleasure in 
reflecting on the immense advantage my country will derive from 
the invention. " Yours truly, etc., 

" Robert Fulton." 

In 1809 Mr. Fulton built a steamboat called the " Car of Nep- 
tune "; in 181 1 the '* Paragon "; in 1812 the '' Fire-fly "; in 1813 
the " Richmond," the *' Washington," the " New York," and 
'* Nassau." Mr. Palfrey and the captain had both been passen- 
gers on Mr. Fulton's boats. In December he built the 
** Vesuvius " of 400 tons at Pittsburg, for the New Orleans trade; 
the " Vesuvius " was the first Western steamboat ever launched. 
Soon thereafter he built the " ^tna," the " New Orleans," the 
" Natchez," and " Buffalo " for the Western rivers. The 
*• Vesuvius " was seized and used by the Government as a trans- 
port previous to and during the battle of New Orleans, in De- 
cember, 1814, and in January, 1815. The " ^tna," ''New 
Orleans," " Natchez," and " Buffalo " were chartered by the 
Government as transports. John Quincy Adams and Andrew 
Jackson certified to Congress the invaluable services rendered 
to the country by Robert Fulton at the battle of New Orleans 
and during the war. 

In January, 1814, a naval commission consisting of Decatur, 
Evans, Perry, Warrington, and Jones, examined Mr. Fulton's 
models and plans for a steam vessel of war which Mr. Fulton had 
patented; his models and recommendations were immediately 
adopted, and on the 31st of October, 1814, the steam frigate, 
named by the commission, '' Fulton the First," of 2475 tons' 
burden, was launched at New York. She carried 32-pound car- 
ronades, and two lOO-pound columbiads. The gallant Porter 
was put in command. She was built at a cost of $320,000, and 
was the first steamship of war ever built. 



ROBERT FULTON'S DAYS. 237 

In 181 5 he built the " Olive Branch," the '' Emperor of Rus- 
sia," and the " Chancellor Livingston." Mr. Fulton's last boat 
he called the " Mute." 

Robert Fulton died on the 24th of February, 181 5, in New 
York, and was buried at Trinity Church. His funeral was at- 
tended by all of the officers of the National and State Govern- 
ments then in the city, and minute guns were fired from the 
steam frigate and the battery. The corporation of the city, and 
literary institutions, and other societies assembled and passed 
resolutions to attend his funeral wearing badges of mourning. 
The Legislature, then in session at Albany, resolved that the 
members of both Houses should wear mourning for some weeks. 
This was the first instance of testimonials of regret and respects 
ever offered by a legislative body on the death of a private 
citizen, 

Mr. Fulton had been honored in life by selections as director 
of the American Academy of Fine Arts of Philadelphia, a mem- 
ber of the New York Historical and Philosophical Society, mem- 
ber of the United States Military and Philosophical Society, and 
of the. Philosophical Society of New York, 

He resided in France seven years and spoke the French lan- 
guage, and possessed a fair knowledge of the Italian language. 

At his death the Government was indebted to his estate up- 
ward of one hundred thousand dollars for money actually ex- 
pended and services rendered by him, a portion of which was 
under contract. A large portion of this indebtedness was for 
the use of his five steamboats on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers 
during the war, for during that time there were no other steam- 
boats on the Western waters; and for the use and damage of the 
** Vesuvius " he had never received a dollar. On a resolution 
of the Senate and House of Representatives, the claim of the 
heirs of Robert Fulton was referred to the Secretary of the Navy, 
who reported that he found the Government indebted to the said 
heirs for services rendered by Mr. Fulton previous to, and during, 
the war with Great Britain, in inventing a system of coast and 
harbor defenses; for inventing and superintending the construe- 



238 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

tion of a steam frigate, and for the use of the steamers " ^tna," 
" Buffalo," " Natchez/' '' New Orleans," and '' Vesuvius," which 
he placed at $100,000. 

The Secretary of the Navy, to reach a conclusion as to the 
amounts justly due, took the testimony of several scientific gen- 
tlemen, who placed the value of Mr. Fulton's patent on the steam 
frigates, which the Government was using free of cost, at $100,- 
000; and for the use of and injury to his steamboats, $75,000; and 
for his services in constructing a steam frigate and coast de- 
fenses, $25,000. An extract from the evidence reads: 

" The patent of the steam battery, it must be evident, is of 
immense value to the United States, and I think that the sum 
of $100,000, paid by the United States, would be in reality but 
one-tenth part of its value. 

" William Morris." 



After a delay of several years, the Committee of Claims 
brought in a bill for $76,300 to carry into effect the Secretary's 
report. It passed both Houses, and the $76,300 were paid to the 
heirs of Mr. Fulton, consisting of four children. 

During his active life, Mr. Fulton communicated in writing 
with Washington, Napoleon, King George III., Lord Stanhope, 
Earl of Chatham, President Madison, Governor De Witt Clinton, 
Governor Mifflin of Pennsylvania, Benjamin West, and Benjamin 
Franklin, and was personally acquainted with most of them. His 
communications were on education, internal improvements, and 
the arts and sciences. 

This extract from a letter of Robert Fulton to Gouverneur Mor- 
ris of New York in 1814, exhibits his ideas of greatness in man- 
kind. This letter was written to show the utility and practica- 
bility of a canal between the Lakes and New York City, in which 
Mr. Fulton says: 

" All that is honorable of the fame of Louis XIV. is the canal 
of Languedoc and his public highways. His military conquests 



ROBERT FULTON'S DAYS. '239 

were lost before he died; his canal and roads alone remain bless- 
ings to France." 

An extract from a prophetic address delivered by Gouverneur 
Morris of New York, on the death of Robert Fulton, is worthy 
of recording: 

" Be it ours to boast that the first vessel successfully propelled 
by steam was launched on the bosom of Hudson's river. It was 
here that American genius, seizing the arm of European science, 
bent to the purpose of our favorite parent and the wildest and 
most devouring element. This invention is spreading fast in the 
civilized world, and, though excluded as yet from Russia, will 
ere long be extended to that vast empire. A bird hatched on the 
Hudson will soon people the floods of the Volga, and cygnets 
descended from the American swan glide along the surface of the 
Caspian Sea; then the hoary genius of Asia, high throned on the 
peaks of Caucasus, his moist eye glistening while it glances over 
the ruins of Babylon, Persepolis, Jerusalem, Palmyra, shall bow 
with grateful reverence to the inventive spirit of this Western 
world. 

'' Hail, Columbia; child of science, parent of useful arts — dear 
countrv, hail! Be it thine to ameliorate the condition of man. 
Too many thrones have been reared by arms, cemented by blood, 
and reduced again to dust by the sanguinary conflict of arms. 
Let mankind enjoy at last the consolatory spectacle of thy throne 
built by industry on the basis of peace, and sheltered under the 
wings of justice." 

All those great results were obtained by Mr. Fulton through 
unparalleled perseverance. His whole mind was engaged in 
calculating how he could best promote the happiness of his fel- 
low-man, and his motto was, "There is nothing impossible 

to do." 

Mr. Palfrey continued the interesting history by saying that 
after General Jackson marched out of the city of New Orleans, 
to give the invaders battle, there were four separate engage- 



240 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

ments, in all of which the British, having the advantage Of larger 
numbers, were the greatest sufferers through their dead and 
wounded, and were in three engagements compelled to retreat 
to a distance. The first engagement took place December 23, 
the second December 28, 1814; the third January i, and the final 
battle January 8, 1815, when, within four hours, over two thou- 
sand redcoats were stretched out in death, and dotted and varie- 
gated the green sward of Chalmette's plain. Thus spoke Mr. 
Palfrey. 

The talented and interesting Mr. Palfrey, his chocolate-colored 
slave carriage driver, and prancing bay horses, sped their way to 
town by the tortuous levee road. 

The chocolate-colored slave had so long been inspired by his 
master's marked and affable qualities that he aped with ease and 
perfection his master's self; this sameness in every word, act, and 
motion caused sailor Bob to say with sincerity, " Them two fel- 
lows who have just set sail in the land craft must be brothers, but 
they do not look alike at all." 

The defeated and dead General Pakenham was sent to his old 
England home in a cask of New England rum for burial. 

When Sailor I first sighted General Jackson in 1829, fourteen 
years after those well-fought battles, he was an erect, tall, gaunt, 
stern-looking man, his brow furrowed with care, and his com- 
plexion sallow; but resolution was stamped on his every feature. 
Previous to those memorable battles he had been schooled in the 
art of deadly war by the Creek Indians, and their brave chief 
Manahoe. 

General Jackson, in his parting address to his triumphant 
troops, who had suffered through painful marches, wounds, pri- 
vations, and unceasing vigilance and every species of hardships, 
and who had displayed more than Spartan courage on Chal- 
mette's battlefield, said, " Farewell, fellow-soldiers! The expres- 
sion of your general's thanks is feeble, but the gratitude of a 
country of freemen is yours — yours the applause of an admiring 
world." 

Yet at this day, 1896, many slumber on downy couches and 



ROBERT FULTON'S DAYS. 241 

feast on rare luxuries, thoughtless of the soldiers' and the sailors' 
hardships and privations, even unto death, to procure those 
blessings and enable them to rest securely at ease, under the folds 
of an unsullied flag. Brave men who have erected within the 
hearts of every patriotic American a never-perishing monument 
that towers far above those erected through the power of pomp, 
title, or wealth. General Andrew Jackson was born in South 
Carolina, on March 15, 1767. 

Of the many thousands of American patriots, who during the 
war of 1812 bared their breasts and faced the British bayonet's 
charge, or thundered their cannon from the gun-decks of the 
gallant American ships of war, now, in 1896, number only twelve 
that walk the earth, their ages ranging from ninety-five up to 
one hundred years, and they soon to sink beneath the horizon of 
time, to reappear in celestial quarters, or on eternity's vast sea. 

Whilst lying at the old battleground shore, the captain of a 
small, well-built sailing craft, of some eighty tons' measurement, 
came on board of the schooner ; he was a well-framed and intelli • 
gent Frenchman. He said our schooner attracted his atten- 
tion. It was just the craft that he desired to own and run in the 
Mexican trade, and inquired if it was for sale; he was answered 
that it was, after it discharged its cargo at Vera Cruz, and its 
crew had secured berths to suit them ; that it would be reasonable 
at sixteen thousand dollars, independent of its cargo and outfit 
of furniture. Sailing vessels in the thirties were built at about 
one-half the price of the nineties. At that day locust pins took 
the place of iron of this day. Live-oak and locust were the iron 
of the thirties. Many changes have taken place since Madison 
and Monroe were Presidents, and even in Jackson's days, but 
the durability has not increased with prices, but greatly 
diminished. J ' 

The French captain, after a very thorough investigation of the 
schooner, from keel to the flag at our maintop, and after examin- 
ing the bills of lading and the bills of purchase, proposed to take 
the schooner at the sixteen thousand dollars, and the cargo at 
cost with twelve per cent, added, and pay the purchase money 



242 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

in the Branch Bank of the United States bills, which branch was 
located in New Orleans, provided the schooner's captain would 
take his craft at the price of three thousand dollars in part pay- 
ment. The sale was immediately consummated, the schooner's 
captain reserving his American flags, arms, cabin furniture, bed- 
ding, tableware, and cooking utensils, the whole lot of but small 
value, and surrendered all of that class of furniture that the newly 
purchased craft possessed. 

The small Philadelphia-built craft, a Mexican smuggler, was 
run alongside of the schooner, and several thousand dollars' 
worth of contraband goods were hoisted upon the schooner, to be 
run into Tampico to wrong Mexico. 

As per contract, the noble and brave Mexican Golas secured his 
cabin passage to Tampico; Mate Sapoles and the three original 
San Salvador sailors retained their positions on board the 
schooner; their services could not be dispensed with; they were 
absolutely necessary to the French captain, and they received an 
increase of pay, as well as full pay from the "' Metamora." 

The French captain, De Purden, greatly desired to employ 
Slashed-cheek John for the voyage, and made him large offers 
by showing him two handfuls of silver. John looked green, but 
he was not green at all; he was a black with intelligence, and saw 
dangerous breakers ahead of him. He spoke his experience with 
De Purden to his captain, who told him that, had he accepted 
the offer, that within forty-eight hours he would be a slave on a 
Louisiana plantation, hoeing cotton. 

During sailor Bedford's recital of his near three years in Africa, 
and declaring that he would on the first opportunity return, and 
Slashed-cheek John had constantly declared that he should not 
rest until he got back to his Africa to take possession of his king- 
dom, and punish his uncle and others who sold him into slavery. 
The captain had said if his Vera Cruz voyage proved a success, 
and he could make a proper sale of his schooner, that he felt a 
desire for adventure and knowledge to the extent of entering 
Africa's interior. Limping Ike remarked that he was a volun- 
teer for cook; thereafter an entry into Africa was the constant 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 243 

talk by day, and the dreams by night, by all save Mate Sapoles, 
who said that when he sailed from his Athens home, he resolved 
never to return until he was both owner and captain of the craft 
that he shipped on, and he would never look for that craft in 
Africa. 

Captain de Purden was bid adieu, and set his sails for Tani- 
pico. The schooner's once captain and the remaining three 
members of his crew, sailor Bedford, Slashed-cheek John, and 
Cook Ike boarded the newly purchased craft, when the novr three 
members queried respecting making a voyage to Africa. Their 
captain said that with thought and care he had weighed that ques- 
tion, and he was positive that there was within Africa a vast field 
for good and for enterprise, and to an extent that would astonish 
the world, and if sailor Bedford and African John, who knew the 
people and the territory, said yes, and they would strictly obey 
his advice and directions in all things, he would immediately fit 
out the newly purchased craft, and within ten days be on the 
ocean with the little schooner's prow pointing toward the South 
Atlantic, bound for Africa; that three intelligent slaves, one or two 
of them natives of Africa, would have to be secured to man our 
craft, and to perform a more important part in Africa; that there 
would be no difficulty in procuring three black slaves; three were 
then known to him that would gladly volunteer, to escape sla- 
very's chains, yet he had not spoken to them on the subject, but 
he had plied to them other questions. Those three slaves were 
with others that supplied the " Metamora " with chickens, eggs, 
and vegetables, whilst at the river's old battleground shore. One 
is a black of quick perception, a native of Dahomey, in Sierra 
Leone; one a native of Africa, and the third cannot name his first 
home, but thinks it was an island, most likely one of the Antilles. 
When all is ready those three can be procured to aid in forming 
a civilized government in Africa. We had no thought of con- 
quest; we were to operate as missionaries in agriculture and com- 
merce, and unite all Africa under one head, a President. We 
had chalked out our journey. The captain well knew that for 
two whites and four blacks to conquer untamed Africa, and unite 



244 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

the various tribes into one republican nation, under one chief 
or president, required time, with untiring resolution and energy, 
coupled with exertion, and that it would be necessary to come 
down to the natives' humble mode of life, and virtually assume 
their nature; that the example of William Penn, on landing in 
Pennsylvania, and the example of Marquette and Joliet, when 
they entered the wild man's home in the western wilderness of 
North America, would have to be strictly followed to insure suc- 
cess. The captain knew that firearms and swords would be 
worthless toys, whilst the Cross and to smoke with them the calu- 
met pipe of peace, and to mingle with them in kindness would 
not alone conquer black men, but the wild beasts of their jun- 
gles; that knowledge and resolution for good were all the capi- 
tal required to create the largest government of the known world, 
and that our number of six were a sufficient force to accomplish 
the undertaking. 

The first step was to use the schooner to visit the Atlantic 
provinces or independent kingdoms, and proselyte through our 
four blacks all the common people, who include full ninety-five 
per cent, of the whole people, then permit the other five per cent, 
to run at large, and do and act as they thought proper. 

The captain estimated that one year's missionary work would 
revolutionize the seaboard districts, and furnish native talent and 
efficiency of an order to be capable of manning the helm of state; 
then we were to enter the Niger River and extend our unarmed 
conquests northeastward toward Berize, and if successful and 
appreciated by the people, then extend our work into Nubia and 
Abyssinia. 

We contracted and paid for ship stores, extra water casks, sails, 
cable, and spars, to be prepared for accident. African John was 
so elated with the idea of his Africa becoming a great and free 
republic that he insisted on surrendering his dominion to the 
captain then and there, but the captain advised him to first get 
possession of it. 

The captain thought it prudent, previous to setting sail for 
Africa, to take a run outside on the Gulf, and see the action and 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 245 

test the capacity of the httle schooner in open water before the 
wind, and also to change the old, muddy, unhealthy-looking bal- 
last for clean, healthy sand ballast ; for this purpose the craft was 
run in a Gulf cove. A number of fishermen were camped not 
far distant, who proposed to aid, for proper pay, in moving the 
ballast. Whilst preparing to remove this ballast, and the cap- 
tain and African John were on the shore, and Cook Ike and sailor 
Bedford with two or three of the fishermen were on the schooner, 
some forty armed men who looked like city merchants — for they 
wore recently blacked boots, white shirts, and tailor-made 
clothing of good quality — rushed at us on a charge, as some 
twelve had bayonet-set muskets, and not less than ten of them 
seized the captain. African John rushed to his relief and was 
knocked down ; both were put in irons, for the gang were supplied 
with both ropes and irons. A sugar planter named McCloud 
claimed African John as his runaway slave; the captain assured 
those merchant people that John had not been in the United 
States but ten days; the feeling of the merchants was not to sur- 
render the negro John to the planter claimant, until a Mr. De 
Lange gave some evidence in the planter's favor; then John was 
hurried of¥ by a gendarme to the plantation, under promise to 
produce him if wanted. A slave could not under the Louisiana 
law testify in court. 

A sailor and a fisherman who were arrested with several others, 
on suspicion of being members of the schooner's crew, told the 
merchant gang that they had long known that schooner; that it 
was owned by Captain de Purden, and that tneir prisoner was De 
Purden. The captain begged to be told the cause of his rough 
arrest, but they all refused to answer, save the words, " Hang the 
murderer! String him up!" He was tossed into a common 
plantation wagon, w^ith iron shackles on his wrists and his feet 
bound with heavy ropes, and driven on the trot some twenty 
miles to the Mississippi River, and lay on the ground under a 
warm, but departing sun for some hours, and then roughly tossed 
onto a towing boat's deck, to be conveyed to New Orleans, and 
there to be cast into a close, filthy prison cell, where no pure 



^46 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

ocean's waters waved; where no gentle zephyrs fanned a fevered 
cheek; where no Hghtning flashed across the zenith to cause the 
refreshing rain to fall ; where no fleeting thunderclouds appeared 
to stir up and purify the stagnant air above, and there on the 
prison books to be named Captain de Purden, and on the morrow 
to be brought before the criminal court, charged with the mur- 
der of the officers, the large crew, number unknown, and some 
eighteen passengers of the French ship " Louis Quatorze," which 
was homeward bound, and which had been picked up at sea some 
two days' sail from the mouth of the Mississippi River, with 
pools of blood on its decks, and its cabin, and all quarters in dis- 
order, and that Captain de Purden's craft and crew were seen by 
an incoming vessel at the approach of day, not far distant from 
where the ship should have been when the piracy took place. 

All the passengers were leading citizens of New Orleans, and 
their kin and friends numbered hundreds; consequently great 
and widespread excitement existed, and a deep gloom of sorrow 
appeared on the face of many. Large rewards were offered for 
the capture and the conviction, a sufficient sum to convict a 
saint; every class of vessels was manned and put in commission 
to capture the pirates; bands of kindred and other merchants 
armed themselves and camped and paraded the Gulf Coast. It 
was a unity of those two bands that captured and bound the cap- 
tain with irons and ropes, and sent Slashed-cheek John into 
slavery on a sugar plantation. 

When the captain was brought from his gloomy prison cell 
into the light of day, to go to trial for the crime of many mur- 
ders, the first objects of note before him were the ancient 
cathedral of St. Louis, erected in 1794, and built with bricks and 
roofed with large concave tile, both manufactured in and imported 
from Spain: and the City Hall, erected in 1795. The captain 
entered the criminal-courtroom between two gendarmes, with 
irons on his wrists; a sad plight for one who but twenty-four 
hours previously was with ambition and confidence preparing 
for the conquest and the governing of one-fourth of the globe. 

The large number of persons interested, and the widespread 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 247 

horror, and its excitement when the chief of the murderers had 
been captured, brought many ladies into the crowded courtroom, 
an occurrence previously unknown, but their kin and friends had 
been cruelly murdered and cast into the Gulf. There was a 
great desire to see the slayer of so large a number; all had pic- 
tured him as a burly, harsh man, with skin like that of a rhi- 
noceros, with tusks protruding from his mouth, and a fiend 
incarnate. A sensation of astonishment flashed through the 
throng when a light-built, tall young man, with smooth but sea- 
shaded face, walked in between the two officers, one of them with 
a drawn sword. The court said "Shame! take those irons off 
the prisoner," but the gendarmes had not brought any key from 
the prison for that purpose; then the prisoner drew the iron 
clasps over his hands and handed them to the officer. The re- 
nowned attorneys Randal Hunt and Pierre Soule, voluntarily 
proposed to the prisoner to defend him. The young sailor did 
not desire an attorney. Then came a vast array of convincing 
testimony, — positive, circumstantial, corroborative, and hearsay, 
— all of which the prosecuting attorney, Mr. Slidell, took the 
separate strands, and twisted them into a halter; then placing 
himself in a tragic position, exultingly held it up at arm's 
length before the court. 

Then the prosecuting attorney called the court's attention to 
the ship which rode the ocean's rough waves, a mute witness of 
the horrid and cruel murders by the fiend De Purden, " who now 
here before this court in his pleadings attempts to personate a 
learned saint, and bewilder your honor by going back to the 
court of Judge Agrippa, for precedents, in the case of the People 
z's. St. Paul. This alone is evidence of his guilt; it is grasping at 
straws to save his worthless life." 

At this point a young French girl in great haste stepped be- 
fore the bar, and with evident emotion said that she desired to 
testify. Being asked if she knew anything respecting the case, 
she answered, " Yes, I had a sister and an aunt on that ship." 
When sworn, she stated that she was a native of New Orleans, 
aged seventeen, and resided on Esplanade Street; that her elder 



^48 A ILIFE'S VOYAGE. 

sister and her aunt were passengers on the French ship *' Louis 
Quatorze"; that the prisoner before the court had not killed 
them or even seen them; that they were not killed at all, but were 
taken on another ship, and were now well and in safety; that 
respecting the other passengers and the ship's crew, she did not 
know, for she had no word from them, but she knew what she 
had told the court respecting her kin to be correct, and she did 
not want that young man hanged for what he had not done. 

This statement created a silent sensation and astonishment in 
the vast assembly that could be felt, for all within the court be- 
lieved the prisoner to be a murderer. The prosecuting attorney, 
with quivering lip and husky voice, slowly asked the witness how 
she had obtained this evidence; she said, " From her dear mother, 
who always spoke the truth." Then hastily said the court, '' Mr. 
Clerk, issue a summons for the mother of the witness to imme- 
diately appear before the court." "Oh, goodness!" said the 
miss; " my mother cannot come to the court; she has been dead 
near one year. She told me all about sister Maria and my aunt 
Josephine last night in a dream." The prosecuting attorney with 
great warmth exclaimed, '* We want no dream evidence in this 
court against plain, undisputed evidence of murder most foul." 

At the close of the pleading the court said, *' Notwithstanding 
the vast array of testimony introduced by the prosecution, the 
court should accept the prisoner's bond for his appearance be- 
fore the court at its next regular session, the prisoner having 
shown his inability to furnish additional security," but before the 
time arrived word reached the city through an incoming vessel 
that the crew and passengers of the deserted, drifting ship, had 
been taken ofif by a friendly passing vessel, and that all were 
alive and well, and that all the passengers had procured passage 
to France. 

A short time revealed the fact that the captain and his officers, 
when some thirty hours out at sea, and when in the track of 
many vessels, claimed that their ship had sprung a leak, and 
could not make the long voyage to Havre, France. A passing 
vessel was entreated to save the large number of lives by taking 




HALF-BREED INDIAN. 



ARJRESTED AS PIRATES. 249 

them on board, which was kindly done; the baggage of the ship- 
wrecked crew and passengers, with some bedding and ship stores, 
was hastily tossed on board of the rescuer; chickens and ducks 
were beheaded, to leave behind the reported pools of blood that 
Captain de Purden was to suffer death for shedding. 

All the crew and passengers were safely landed at a friendly 
island port. Subsequent investigation proved the leakage to be 
very trifling, and the chief portion of the ship's cargo was dry 
oak staves for French wine casks, cut and prepared the previous 
year in Ohio, and floated down the Ohio River and the Miss- 
issippi River in flatboats to New Orleans. Those dry staves, to- 
gether with a few hundred bales of cotton, the safest cargo that a 
leaking or a sinking ship could be freighted with. 

The ship was subsequently manned and sailed to her destined 
port of entry, and large salvage exacted and paid. It was sus- 
pected by many sailors that her insurance policies were too heavy 
for her and her cargo's true value, and that she was aban- 
doned to go to the ocean's bottom, for gain. 

The great hardship was that the innocent had to suffer through 
the cowardly or criminal abandonment, even to the loss of life 
and limb; not on the ocean, but on the land. 

Through this cowardly, if not criminal act of the officers and 
the crew of the ship " Louis Quatorze," African John had been 
arrested and doomed to slavery, and his captain bound and cast 
into a prison, and tried before a court for his life. This act of 
abandoning the ship to the waves caused sorrow in New Orleans, 
for when the word reached that port that pirates had taken the 
lives of many of their friends, and that a suspicious craft was 
beating on and off the coast, and was supposed to have made a 
landing, some forty armed merchants marched to the coast, where 
they pitched their tents; a second squad, near forty, soon fol- 
lowed, who, on seeing a tent and many armed men, immediately 
fired on them. The citizens, in and around their tent, supposing 
that the pirates were making war on them, returned the fire, kill- 
ing a Mr. Hose, a leading citizen, and several on both sides were 
wounded, and in time one merchant lost an arm through the error 



250 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

of the two squads of friends supposing each other were the pirates 
and the murderers. Hundreds of the older citizens of New 
Orleans, especially in tne French quarter, can now bring to mind 
all of those tragical occurrences, and some with great sorrow. 

After the discovery that the crew and passengers of the 
" Louis Quatorze " had not been murdered or molested at all, 
and the former captain of the schooner '' Metamora," who had 
been on trial for his life under the name of the French Captain 
de Purden, a name given to him by the prosecution against his 
solemn protest, was now relieved from the horrid charge of many 
murders. The captain felt a tinge of resentment toward the 
ship's officers, through whose cowardly, if not criminal acts he 
had so greatly and wrongly suffered, and which acts had caused 
great distress to a large number and the loss of life and limbs to 
others; then at this point the captain turned all of his affairs over 
to Sailor I as manager. 

Good reader, it belongs to a life's voyage to record the 
final end of the " Metamora's " crew; a galaxy of bravery and 
intellect that would compare with that of the crew of any craft 
ever launched, from the crew that manned Noah's ark down to 
date. It requires a broad mind, yes, as of the ocean's breadth, 
to fathom and comprehend the footprints of time and the fleeting 
scenes and acts of life as they rush before us. 

The captain's main dependence in his African adventure rested 
in the knowledge and the influence of the ex-prince John, who 
had been seized on and put to work as a slave on McCloud's 
Louisiana sugar plantation; this blighted all hopes of what he 
had considered a sure and positive success. Through the loss of 
Prince John all his once bright hopes had vanished. 

I immediately visited the Gulf coast to look after the recently 
purchased schooner " Reine," and ascertain sailor Bedford's and 
Cook Ike's experience; they had escaped arrest when the enraged 
merchants of New Orleans had seized and bound the captain 
and African John and several innocent fishermen as murderers, 
but on reaching the coast no sailor Bedford or Cook Ike or 
schooner was to be sighted there, but I found some old disabled 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 251 

sailors who were making a scant living by fishing and by catch- 
ing shrimps in the Mississippi River and in the bayous, who in- 
formed me that a report had reached the coast that the schooner's 
captain had been tried, convicted, and executed for murdering 
the crew and passengers of the ship ^ Louis Quatorze"; upon 
this information sailor Bedford and Cook Ike, believing the cap- 
tain to be most surely dead, had collected all the ship stores and 
other property that the captain had purchased and paid for, and 
had also taken on board the schooner at nightfall the three 
African slaves from near the battleground, heretofore spoken of, 
and a French adventurer and a navigator as captain, and two 
white sailors, and shipped for Cape Town, Africa, under ballast, 
without any fixed programme. 

In after years sailor Bedford wrote his uncle Bedford, of Bien- 
ville Street, New Orleans, that he had been wounded in battle 
and could never recover; that his life was numbered by a few 
days; that he had joined the Boers of the Cape of Good Hope 
against the English invaders, who were slaughtering and robbing 
the Boers and driving them from their homes into the interior 
wilderness; that he with his companion, known in the United 
States and at sea as Cook Ike, and three Louisiana slaves had 
joined the Boers to defend their families and homes against Eng- 
lish robbers and tyrants; that Cook Ike and the three black Loui- 
siana slaves, whilst fighting to protect the wives and daughters 
of the good and religious Boers from English baseness, were in a 
charge bayoneted to death, and that he had received death wounds 
in the same engagement; that he sent a box of treasure to pay 
the proper owners of the schooner " Reine," if they could be 
found, and the balance to be given to his nearest kindred. This 
sailor of many parts soon passed to his tomb, as he had predicted. 
Notwithstanding negro slaves surrendered their lives the un- 
hallowed English drove the inoffensive Boers from their fields 
and homes, and again and again drove them into the wilderness; 
then the good, religious, and industrious Boers armed to defend 
themselves against English oppression and tyranny, and every 
man subscribed the following solemn oath, which exhibits their 



252 - A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

distress and earnestness; they know that Heaven's justice never 
slumbers. • 

" In the presence of Ahnighty God, the Searcher of hearts, 
and praying for his gracious assistance and mercy, we, burgh- 
ers of the South African RepubHc, have solemnly agreed, for us 
and for our children, to unite in a holy covenant, which we con- 
firm with a solemn oath. It is now forty years ago since our 
fathers left the Cape Colony to become a free and independent 
people. These forty years were forty years of sorrow and suffer- 
ing. We have founded Natal, the Orange Free State, and the 
South African republic, and three times has the English Govern- 
ment trampled upon our liberty. Our flag, baptized with the 
blood and tears of our fathers, has been pulled down. As by a 
thief in the night has our free republic been stolen from us. We 
cannot suffer this, and we may not. It is the will of God that 
the unity of our fathers, and love to our children, should 
oblige us to deliver unto our children, unblemished, the heritage 
of our fathers. It is for this reason that we here unite, and give 
each other the hand as men and brethren, solemnly promising 
to be faithful to our country and people, and looking unto God, 
to work together unto death for the restoration of the liberty of 
our republic. So truly help us God Almighty! " 

Without a doubt England desires to subdue the Boers and 
the Africans, and crown their kings and queens as the possessors 
of an African empire; just as they do now as possessors of expan- 
sive Hindostan, with its over 150,000,000 people who are used 
by England as serfs and soldiers. Together with that vast terri- 
tory extending from the Himalaya Mountains on the north, and 
extending to the Indian Ocean on the south, and from Burmah 
and the Bay of Bengal on the east to the Arabian Sea and 
Afghanistan on the west, which surround a vast area of 147,000,- 
000 square miles. 

England is the landowner, and the entire people, save a few that 
England invested with power, are virtually serfs, who retain the 
land on condition of their fealty to the crown of England, and the 
crown uses the people to procure money to support it, and sol- 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 253 

diers to fight their battles, and thus will they treat the Boers and 
the Africans when they gain the ascendency in Africa. England 
first placed her tyrannical foot on the soil of India in 1737. 

It would be placing the very ordinary Prince of Wales on a 
high black horse to anoint him Emperor of India and Africa. I 
sighted the young Prince of Wales in 1857, and fathomed him 
with care, and arrived at the conclusion that he might answer 
for a King of England, with a Pitt or a Gladstone to do his think- 
ing, talking, and writing, but that he would make a very poor 
sailor to go aloft and work up latitude and longitude. 

Then soon comes hypocritical Italy, with her degraded and 
ignorant hordes desirous to ape what the ignorant call greatness 
in Britain's unhallowed career of cruelty and tyranny; they cast 
away the Cross to wield the sword in Abyssinia. 

Italy's well-fed despots are now crying for the expansion of 
their poisonous and degrading sway in Africa, at the cost of the 
blood, the distress, and the degradation of the people of Abys- 
sinia, who are the Italians' superiors in all that makes a great and 
manly people. 

Pauper Italy's object and desire are through the use of bor- 
rowed treasure to weaken, enslave, and degrade the Abyssinians 
below their own Italian very low and common level, that they 
may more firmly place their well-known cloven foot upon their 
necks. 

Sailor I know more than one generation of those nations, and 
have with care fathomed the standing and ability of both those 
people, and can say that the average Abyssinian is the average 
Italian's superior, yet Italy is constantly putting on airs of na- 
tional arrogance. Those inferior Italian people do not shed 
Abyssinian blood and seek their possessions to benefit Abys- 
sinia, but to aggrandize profane Italy, who has a vast field for 
missionary work at home. 

I have seen samples by the thousand of the neglected common 
class of Italian people as used by Italy to attempt to subdue their 
superiors, and have also seen and mingled with Abyssinians in 
many ports, and I know of what I speak. 



254 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

One of America's leading journals, the Chicago "Tribune" 
of April 30, 1896, now before me, in speaking of the extent of 
Italian and other undesirable immigration to the United States, 
very properly uses the words degraded and ignorant, and pro- 
ceeds to say ** That from January ist to April 17th of this year, 
the arrival of Italian immigrants at New York numbered 19,946, 
and by April 30th this number will have been increased to about 
27,000. Of the whole number a little over one-half are abso- 
lutely illiterate." 

This influential and conservative journal, the Chicago '' Trib- 
une," pleads for restrictions on the unhealthy and national 
destroying immigration; without a shadow of doubt America has 
been greatly injured through the unhealthy influx of foreigners 
faster than they could be Americanized, as is well known in every 
quarter and by everyone of ordinary intelligence; and the third 
and fourth generations of this vast immigration are not at heart 
or thought Americans, but foreigners save in name, through their 
constant teachings and example. The consequence is we have 
with us the sworn Frei Bund and the Mafia wath their star cham- 
ber, secret courts convened within the saloon and the cabaret^s 
back room, to decree boycotts, non-intercourse, or death against 
incautious or delinquent Americans who created and gave them 
a home to flee to, which but lately was a wilderness, but now 
placed under cultivation and surrounded by commerce, created 
by toil and hardship, and who for their enterprise and kindness 
have this day to pay out vast sums of money under unrighteous 
laws to erect and equip buildings and support a vast number of 
foreign teachers, to teach their foreign languages, — a worthless 
waste, — and also to constantly supply thousands of them with 
poorhouse homes and insane asylums, who are shipped here to 
enter those American institutions, as is well known. 

Sailor I have been tried and condemned by both the Frei Bund 
and the Mafia, — by the decree of one court to punishment, and 
by the other court to death, — and I know of what I speak, and I 
do not expect those foreign court trials to yet cease. 

A second African Hannibal may arise to again invade and pun- 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 255 

ish Italy; history may repeat itself. A repetition of the Africans* 
sway in Italy would astonish the present world, yet this act did 
take place, and the African Hannibal with his black troops 
made conquests throughout Italy to the very gates of Rome. 
Good reader! To get a perfect knowledge of the Africans' in- 
vasion in and throughout Italy, I advise you to procure the works 
of Appian, Cassius, and Polybius. This African invasion into 
Italy took place in 217 before Christ. 

I will not further consume the good reader's time, and my 
space, in resurrecting occurrences from beneath the dust of ages, 
but will go back to the noble crew of the " Metamora," who at the 
risk of death captured the big slaveship, and gave its many poor 
black slaves their lives and liberty. 

The almost unknown, but great and talented Sapoles never 
reached his Athens home as the captain and the owner of a ship, 
the pleasant dream of his life; he by untiring exertion, amidst 
storms and tempests, had procured his long-sought ship — to be 
wrecked and lost in March, 1841, off Venezuela, on the rocky 
shore of the Gulf of Paria, and out of twelve on board only three 
were saved, the mate and two sailors, who succeeded in gaining 
the steep, rocky shore to suffer almost death before being rescued 
after many days. Those sailors reported to the press the ship- 
wreck, the loss of life, and their great sufferings on the barren 
surf-washed rocks. 

Whilst in Texas in 1841, I received a letter from one-legged 
sailor Bill Brown, by the hand of Thomas William Ward, for- 
merly a house carpenter of New Orleans, a captain of artillery in 
the Texas revolution of 1835, ^^^ ^^'^^ ^'^st a leg by a cannon 
ball fired from the Alamo at the storming of San Antonio when 
he was quite a young man; he some years thereafter lost his 
right arm in firing a salute on the anniversary of Texas' inde- 
pendence. He became a man of note, and what was left of him 
was appointed by President Buchanan as consul at Panama; he 
died in Austin, Tex., on the 25th of November, 1872. 

This letter from sailor Bill said: '* Mr. Fulton, I have searched 
for you in every quarter since I left Dr. McFarland's hospital; 



256 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

I now strike your course through Captain Ward, a Mayor of a 
town in Texas ; I saw the renowned captain's name in type at the 
' Picayune ' office before it went to the press. I had understood 
that you were in Texas, and I greatly desired to hear from you. 
I have kept a correct log, and will report to you, although 
lengthy. I remained in the hospital over nine months; the doc- 
tor did not wish to part with me, as he could use me to advantage, 
and also get pay from Uncle Sam for boarding and doctoring 
me, there being no marine hospital. As soon as I could hop 
around his man of all work got me up a pair of awful crutches, 
and he put me to work peeling potatoes, washing dishes, and a 
vast array of duty to save the expense of a third cook or help. 
Dr. McFarland said I was a genius, and I could soon learn to 
mix medicine, bandage, and bleed his patients; then he could 
part with his Vienna assistant and give me some pay, as well as 
a good home, but I did not crave the berth. The doctor bleed 
for every disease and complaint, and dosed all with calomel; but 
I tell you whilst the doctor bleed his patients in the left arm he 
bleed Uncle Sam in the jugular vein. In time I saw his entering 
book, and I was greatly astonished to find that I entered in a 
very precarious condition, and that he had taken my leg off the 
very day it was amputated at sea by the captain, over five hun- 
dred miles from New Orleans. Although I had work to perform 
at the hospital, or hobble out into the world, I had several leisure 
hours during the day, and as fate so willed, a young printer in the 
' Bee * office got his left elbow greatly injured by a fall against the 
rapidly moving printing press, and as he convalesced, we united 
and purchased many pounds of rejected type from the Louisiana 
' Advertiser,' which we sorted up, and then purchased a hand 
press and went to work printing cards for our doctor and a large 
number of merchants and business men, and accumulated some 
money. My printer companion, William Long, instructed me in 
type-setting. Our card-printing and a little job work introduced 
me, and as I moved round the city on my crutches to see many 
kind men, whom I must name to a^ou, as you may fall in with 
them some day: T. L. Hartman of the Planters' Bank, Beverly 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 257 

Chew of the Canal Bank, Joseph Saul of the Bank of New 
Orleans, Lawyer Mazuereau, Mr. Bishop of the City Hotel, Levi 
H. Gale, James R. Peters, Paul Tulane, and others who took an 
interest in my condition, and clubbed together and sent to New 
York to get me a first-class artificial leg, and also sent an expert 
artist to make a cast of my stump leg, which cast was made out 
of beeswax, as I saw it when perfected. 

'* The New York genius wrote me that the surgeon who 
operated on me had left my limb in splendid shape to attach a 
leg to — about the best he had ever fitted. 

'' Under the direction of my good friend William Long, I 
practiced setting and distributing type and doing some printing 
every spare minute for some five months, and as I worked to 
learn, my teacher said that I had made extraordinary progress. 

" We then purchased more new type, rented a cheap upper room 
on Gravier Street, and extended our business, when the yellow 
fever appeared and took my good partner from the stage of life 
and wrecked my operations; at this period many of the forces in 
the * Picayune ' office who were getting large pay struck for 
larger pay at midnight, without notice to the office. Editor Put- 
nam P. Rea, of the ' Commercial Bulletin,' to whom I had a few 
hours previously applied to for a berth, sent a trusty night mes- 
senger to tell me to hasten to the * Picayune ' office, that work 
there wanted me, and two or three others if I knew good and 
trusty men; I knew two such men, and the three of us had cases 
before us within forty minutes of the time that they had been 
deserted. My first work was to set up a lengthy article from the 
Pearl of Pearl River, a lady of extended renown as a writer, and 
to whom the * Picayune ' is largely indebted for its unparalleled 
prosperity. My first work on this paper, as all subsequent work, 
passed muster. The keel of the ' Picayune ' was laid and she 
was launched by the enterprising and talented Lumsdale and 
Kendal, in 1837; their appreciated lives have taken flight, but 
their names and remembrance now silently rest in the catalogue 
of greatness. " Yours, etc., 

' • " Sailor Bill, 



258 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

" P. S. — I must also give you sad news. Poor sailor Bob, 
who so fearlessly aided in driving the slave officers and their 
crew into their ship's cabin, died whilst in port here with the 
yellow fever, and thanks to the good ' Picayune ' I had received 
sufficient pay to purchase Bob an above-ground tomb at the old 
Catholic burying ground. I had rendered the same service to 
printer Little, but he possessed money to pay for his oven-like 
tomb when he met the fate of many strangers. 

" New Orleans is a great and desirable city, and if I cannot 
find my tomb at sea, then I desire to find it here. A sailor is not 
expected to possess rhyme or poetry, but I am so elated over my 
good fortune in securing a berth in the * Picayune ' office, and in 
this great and wonderful Crescent City, that I must say if the 
Garden of Eden was not here it must have been in some place 
near, for here the golden fruit is ripened; here the grape and fig 
abound; here many a wanderer with life hath parted and been 
buried above the ground. Excuse this, an imperfect line from a 
friend of thine. I continue yours." 

The New Orleans of 1896 is not the New Orleans of 1830 and 
previously. I plainly see that over three-fourths of a century 
has made a change. Here at that early day Paris, Rome, 
Madrid, London, and the Yankee nation walked the streets and 
assembled within the social halls, and the Jesuit and the negro 
auctioneer mingled, whilst the Indian stolidly passed, or 
looked on. 

This city and its once vast territory have been the shuttlecock 
of kings and emperors. A wonderful city, with a wonderful and 
enchanting and romantic history that, if truthfully portrayed at 
this day, it would be pronounced as fictitious. 

Here Spain, France, and England sought to create empire, 
but the shrewd L^ncle Sam secured the prize, and drew his line 
southward to drink the waters of the Rio Grande. 

Time moved on apace, and a very large number of pretended 
American shippers and vessel captains and owners set up a claim 
and a howl of indignation that their vessels and their cargoes 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 259 

had been wrongfully seized and confiscated by the Mexican Gov- 
ernment, and they desired Uncle Sam to collect from the Mexi- 
can Government and pay over to them their claimed losses. 

Amongst those claimants was Captain de Purden, of the 
schooner *' Metamora," whose vessel and cargo on her first 
voyage to Tampico were seized as a smuggler. The docu- 
mentary evidence clearly proved that Captain de Purden was an 
American citizen, sailing an American-built vessel under the 
American flag, and was conducting a legal traffic, whose vessel 
and cargo were worth forty-two thousand American dollars, and 
were wrongfully sei^zed on and confiscated by the Mexican Gov- 
ernment. 

Sailor I never knew the result of Captain de Purden's fictitious 
and base claim on the Government of Mexico; he was a citizen 
of France and a noted smuggler. True, his then recently pur- 
chased vessel and her cargo had justly been seized by Mexico, 
and confiscated. 

The superior craft, the '' Metamora," was pierced for cannon 
and manned by Mexicans as a vessel of war, to fight the United 
States in our war with her in 1846, a war in part growing out of 
this exacted, but unrighteous indemnity — an indemnity in a 
measure like unto the Behring Sea seal fishery indemnity now 
hanging over the head of Uncle Sam, in which pure white paper 
was blackened by perjury. Then in time, through this indemnity 
wrong to Mexico, followed the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca 
de la Palma, to end at the once location of the halls of Monte- 
zuma, and the loss of her California. 

In 1840 I sighted in Havana, Cuba, the slave merchant 
Mariena, who went through the trying ordeal on Florida's penin- 
sula for his life; his brow was furrowed with care and anxiety, 
his eyes glared on vacancy, and his sallow complexion with its 
tinge of paleness gave him a ghostlike appearance, if that appear- 
ance ever took form and walked the earth. He had as soon as 
possible after his escape from death by the muskets of the three 
executioners on Florida's flats gone to Cifba. and with great 
toil and exertion saw that everv slave that the schooner's crew 



26o A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

had taken from him, some of whom he found in slavery, were set 
free, and homes with wages for their work were secured to them. 
The good Captain General, who had received the schooner's 
captain's letter through the Portuguese mate, had previously 
cared for many of them, and had forbidden the planters and all 
others to seize and enslave them under penalty, yet many had 
been placed in slavery, and had it not been for the Captain Gen- 
eral's good act, and Mr. Mariena's vigilance, every negro and his 
posterity would have been doomed to a life of slavery. Mr. 
Mariena was at that very period searching for Slashed-cheek 
John to see that he was not passing through his life in slavery, 
and when told that he was then, if alive, a slave in Louisiana, 
Mr. Mariena immediately set out in search for him, and, if neces- 
sary, to purchase him at any cost. 

After African John and Sailor I had talked over all those ex- 
citing occurrences of the past, on the St. Lawrence Bay and its 
Gulf, and entered them on my diary, John said that it was hard 
to realize the past as it had flitted by. John differed with me in 
one or two unimportant points: I named the judge of the court 
that tried the captain Judge Pervall, a noble-looking man, a 
native of St. Domingo; Prince John called him Judge Morgan, 
and he thought that the deserted French ship was named 
" Charles VIIL," but this was unimportant. 

We had passed two days of our pleasant voyage, and to obtain 
more sea room we ran outside into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 
and had canvassed occurrences of years past and gone. Then 
came the question of Prince John's life in Africa, and his escape 
from Louisiana slavery; John said that after being sold to the 
Spaniards of the slaveship, his constant thought was to get back 
to Africa and punish his treacherous kindred for their cruel act 
through which three of his near kin, who were seized when he 
was and placed in the slaveship, had died from hardship and want, 
and had been cast into the ocean during the long voyage. John 
said that he had resolved on freedom or death in the attempt; 
he had learned much through witnessing the capture of his big 
and well-manned and armed slaveship by the little schooner, and 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 261 

her one-armed and one-legged small crew, two of them shot 
down, and the remaining seven never flinched. 

Prince John said, '' Planter McCloud did not keep me but a 
few weeks on his plantation; all knew that I was a late arrival, 
and that Mr. McCloud never owned me; he sent me to the auc- 
tion block in New Orleans where I was sold to a Mr. Sewel a 
builder, for $750. Mr. Sewel set me to work carrying bricks 
on my head up a ladder onto a building; when work was slack 
I paid Master Sewel nine dollars a week for my time. I made 
and saved some money. Soon after I arrived in New Orleans, I 
married the woman you saw at our home; she was a slave raised 
by Mr. William Brand, on Magazine Street. A young woman 
m the family taught her to read and write, and my wife taught 
me the same. Mr. James Caldwell purchased her as a servant 
for an actress, a Miss Plassede, because she was a fair scholar, 
and in addition to doing Miss Plassede's work, she could aid her 
at home in rehearsing her parts. 

" There were then two of us to escape from slavery, and then 
soon three of us, a very difficult task, as blacks at large were 
soon arrested, even in the free Northern States, and as ships 
under the laws were accountable if detected in transporting a 
slave. 

" We were constantly on the watch for information and an 
opportunity to escape; finally we fell in with a Virginia runaway 
slave that had reached Canada and resided there over one year, 
and to get larger wages entered New Jersey, and was arrested 
by officers, and sent South and sold; he had names, distances, 
and the proper routes to travel; that the only safety was to hide 
by day, and travel by night, and that even^ this was very pre- 
carious. I worked on board of steamboats at the levee whenever 
I could get work there, so as to find an opportunity to get my 
wife and child up the river into or near the free States, and on 
their way to Canada; that was the only hope that we could see 
before us; this my first task before I could make a break for 
liberty. 

"At length, after many trials and disappointments, I found 



262 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

on board of a third-class Pittsburg steamboat a pliant 
chambermaid who offered to take my wife and child 
into her stateroom, my wife to aid her in her work during 
the trip, and I to pay her ten dollars down, and my wife to pay 
her fifty dollars on arriving at Pittsburg; she said the boat's 
ofificers did not interfere in her department, and she would pass 
her off with the few passengers if any question arose as to her 
assistant, which she would truly be. She and her child landed 
safely at Pittsburg, and after a world of hardship and adventure 
reached Canada destitute, and got a situation to work for a pri- 
vate family, who, after discovering her educational ability, 
doubled her wages and gave her a situation to teach their seven 
small children, whose school was at a long distance from their 
home. 

" To pay sixty dollars for my wife's transportation to Pitts- 
burg, with outfit for a long inland journey, used up a large por- 
tion of the thirty sovereigns that I got possession of as my bounty 
from the captured slaveship of¥ Cuba, but I had a portion of the 
small sum I had saved from my work. My task was not yet 
finished; I was a slave in slavery, and had not a single friend, 
unless I called a broken-down billiard player and gambler, a Mr. 
Paul, my friend, for whom I had worked for some months, when 
he was very fortunate at his games of chance, for he held the key 
to the whole situation. I was, as a very green and ignorant 
African slave, permitted and desired to pass around and amongst 
his victims and his friends to carry cigars, wine, and other drinks, 
and telegraph the situation and my discoveries to headquarters 
through African telegraphy that had been in use in Africa cen- 
turies before the day of the Morse telegraph in America. I had 
no conscientious scruples to check my action or arouse my sym- 
pathy for the roughly shorn victims, as they were most all slave- 
owners and lived and fattened on the life and labor of the black 
slave. Mr. Paul, who was constantly up and down in the world, 
was at this period very successful and secured some ten thou- 
sand dollars; my portion of the spoil was near six hundred dol- 
lars, which I laid securely by. At this period my master Sewel 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 263 

ordered me back to his own work, on which he considered me 
worth more than the nine dollars per week that I had fo some 

h Th i ' J^" "^"^' ''' °^ ^ ^'-'^ '^b-- '° his master if hf 



"Soon combinations and reverses reached Mr. Paul and 

»ame time the yellow fever struck him down, and I saw to his 
every want and brought him back to life wh;n forsaken b^ at 

sTro" dT"' *"■• "^^"^ ^"^"^^^ ""^ "^^^ he could now, when 

tripped of money, ever pay me the large debt that he owed to me 

for my unt.r,ng labor and my many sleepless nights at his beds^e 

postLSThe Tbrrr' "'' ' ™^'"^ ^^^- ' '°'d him th h 
possessed the ability to pay me and to pay me well, without anv 

him and at the same time perform a Christian act and duty He 
hastily exclaimed, 'Name the pay or duty, and if in the powe 

: ' 1 ' "° """"■^ ^ ''='^^' ■'"t ^ fr« man! You pos- 

sess the power to give me freedom, and you run but a small risk 

atlTh'i'd ' ^'''': ^"^°" '''' *^ P-' y- perform f't 
ac with judgment and caution you will escape the prison and I 

will escape from slavery.' Mr. Paul said he could not ee ;r con 
ceive by what means we could accomplish the object spoke of" 
tha danger of detection lay in every quarter; thin he asked me 
takn "1\:f '.'°\!''^^ !!^-^ht of to accomplish the und"! 
takmg. I told him that I had long canvassed the momentous 
subject, and could not see any fear of cause for a failure Th 
way ,s plain and clear. You have just lately said that if you had 
the money that you would for your health set out by this niit's 
steamboat for St. Louis; that you had kindred there wher you 
would be welcomed. I have money that I received Zrvou 
with some that I took from a slaveship, and will pay Z pas-' 
sage to your St. Louis friends; all I request of you is for you to 
take me with you as your servant slave, to wait on you a^d see 
to you as I have done for some weeks, as I well knew you could 



264 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

and would deliver me from slavery, and when we reach St. Louis 
in safety, as we will, that you immediately accompany me across 
the river to the free State of Illinois; then I will risk all by my- 
self. You know it is a daily occurrence for a master to have his 
servant with him on the river boats, and I have long had a fair 
suit of clothing for a gentleman's servant on hand near by us to 
slip on, and you are ever fitted for a traveling gentleman, but T 
shall preserve my working clothes to journey through the 
Western and Northern States to Canada.' 

" Mr. Paul pronounced my programme to be perfect, and as 
my master Sewel would not look for me before the coming Satur- 
day to receive his week's pay, we would have a start of five days 
and five nights. We took our passage that same evening, I act- 
ing as the sick man's good and faithful servant, attending to his 
every want; not a hint, not a suspicious question or word was 
uttered, but many glances were cast at my adorned African face. 

*' We immediately on striking the St. Louis steamboat landing, 
as per previous arrangement, hired a man with a skiff to sail two 
men over the river to the Illinois shore, and sail one of them 
back to the St. Louis boat landing, for which I paid one dollar by 
the hand of Mr. Paul. The man in the skiff, when first ap- 
proached, refused to carry me over the river, saying that he dare 
not carry a nigger over the river ; but when told that I was in my 
master's charge, he consented and told us to hasten on board, 
but as he pushed off from the shore we observed that he looked 
back over his shoulder to see that the coast was clear of spies, 
and he remarked that he made the voyage for that dollar, a fact 
that we knew. On striking the shore, I with an expanded heart 
stepped onto the free soil of Illinois, and bid the gambler, Mr. 
Paul, a final adieu, with many thanks. I immediately made my 
way over low, wet swampy ground that had been recently flooded 
by the overflow of the Mississippi River, to a small log house 
where I found two large boys and their mother, of whom I asked 
if there was any black family living near them; they said there 
was a black family residing east of them across the American 
bottom, some three miles distant, but they doubted if I could 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 265 

reach it by night as the river had recently flooded all the Ameri- 
can bottom, and many swamps and lakes existed that a stranger 
could not pass over, even during a clear night. One of the 
boys proposed, if I would give him a half dollar, and would trot 
over the ground with him lively, that he would pilot me to the 
home of the black family; I .gladly closed the contract, but it 
was the most tiresome and the longest three miles that I had 
ever passed over, and I had done big walking in Africa. That 
boy went on the jump, and frequently remarked that he wanted 
to be back home in ij hour, and that I must step lively as I had 
promised to do. 

" The black family advised me to avoid villages and taverns, 
for there the slave-catchers resided or lingered, gave me valuable 
information and the names of good men on my line of travel. 
All worked w^ell until I reached Central Pennsylvania, where a 
large number of Maryland and Virginia runaway slaves passed 
through by the underground railroad, and where a large number 
of detectives were on the constant watch and made their living 
by apprehending slaves. 

" In passing through that section I had to lay secreted by 
day and travel by night, and then run a great risk of capture. I 
must give the names of two who gave me shelter when I was in 
danger, Mr. Lindley Coates and Dr. Joseph Gibbons of Lan- 
caster County, Pennsylvania, who protected me when pursued 
bv the slave-catchers in that countv, the onlv serious risk and 
adventure I met with during my long journey to Canada and 
freedom, where I found my wife and child, and purchased my 
farm with the money that I chiefly got from Mr. Paul, the 
gambler; a few sovereigns of it were from the slaveship captured 
off Cuba." 

African John furnished me with a list of the ofTficers and mana- 
gers of the far-famed and mysterious underground railroad be- 
tween the slave States and Canada, a portion of which he traveled 
over in escaping from slavery. I must here place the names of 
a few of this phalanx of humanity and bravery on my record; 
they merit a towering and unperishing monument instead of this 



266 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

tribute of recorded respect. Many ladies were numbered with 
these philanthropists: Rev. Samuel Aaron, Daniel Gibbons, 
Thomas Whitson, Emmor Kimber, William Thorne, Hannah 
W. Gibbons, Caleb Hood, William Speakman, Sarah M. Bar- 
nard, Joshua Brinton, Dr. Jacob L. Paxton, Sarah P. Barnard, 
Nathan Evens, James Lewis, James Fulton, Joseph Fulton, 
Edwin P. Atlee. 

A panorama of the once constantly moving underground rail- 
road would be the most interesting novelty of fact ever pro- 
duced, if painted up to life; within that panorama you would see, 
passing through swamps and by rough paths on the hillsides and 
byways, old age with gray locks, and males and females in the 
vigor of life, followed more slowly by a stooping mother of mid- 
dle age with tears in her eyes and a near two-year-old piccaninny 
lashed to her back, and in her aching arms she carries an infant, 
which is tugging at her feverish and empty breast, endeavoring 
to prolong its life. She trembles and looks back; she fancies that 
she hears the yelping of bloodhounds and the hoofs of the slave- 
catcher's horse in pursuit of her to place her offspring under 
the slave driver's lash; the infants, with a natural instinct, press 
close to their mother and maintain the silence of death, and many 
Christain whites on their bended knees pray to the great Supreme 
for the delivery of the mother and her infants from slavery. On 
this panorama would appear many battles between the white 
master and black slave, even unto death. 

I must note one of the directors and conductors of the ancient 
underground railroad — " A Sister " — as published in the village 
" Record " of West Chester, Pennsylvania, on December 7, 1891, 
and which journal is now before me, and reads as follows: 

" THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD IT IS RECALLED BY THE 

DEATH OF ONE OF ITS AGENTS IN CHESTER COUNTY. 

" At her home in West Sadsbury, on the 17th of October, 1891. 
Mary Ann Fulton Hartley died, in the eighty-second year of her 
age. She was the daughter of Joseph and Esther Fulton, who 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 267 

took an earnest and active part in the early anti-slavery move- 
ment in its most unpopular days. They were members of the 
Clarkson Anti-Slavery Society, and agents of the Underground 
Railroad, by which many fugitive slaves were assisted on their 
way to free Canadian homes. In these philanthropic efforts 
their daughter Mary Ann was in the fullest sympathy, often act- 
ing as conductor of fugitive parties to the next station. It was 
largely through her prompt and energetic efforts that William 
Parker and his friends were enabled to escape the vigilant search 
of the United States authorities, after the Christiana riots. For 
many miles around, every conceivable hiding place was visited, 
. but without effect; for Mary Ann had put them safelv on board 
the mvisible underground railroad. 

'' But it was not alone the fugitives from slavery that aroused 
her sympathy; the helpless and distressed never appealed to her 
in vain. In many instances, she was the good Samaritan to those 
whom the proud priest and Levite passed coldly by. To do 
good was her highest idea of religion. ' Inasmuch as ve did it 
unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto me ' was, in her 
esteem, the truest practical exposition of it. She believed in the 
words of Jesus, that ' the Kingdom of God is within vou, unless 
ye be reprobates.' She could say with Harriot Winslow: 

Look not to some cloudy mansion, 
'Mid the planets far away; 
Trust not to the distant future, 
Let thy Heaven begin to-day.' 

" In her earlier days she taught school, and there are those 
still living who remember with grateful pleasure the many use- 
ful lessons in life, as well as in science and literature, that she 
was wont to teach them. She was well read in the best English 
classics and often recited some of the finest stanzas of ' Childe 
Harold.' 

"J. Williams Thorne. 
"Black Horse, Pa., November 29, 1891." 



268 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Greatness without ostentation, a lowly worker for humanity! 

At this village Christiana, and in this same connection, did the 
fugitive slave-catcher and slave-trader and owner, the brother of 
Slashed-cheek John's Virginia hired man of Canada, lose his life. 

Good reader, I could from my diary of a life's voyage lay be- 
fore you on this record, substantiated by the journals of the 
long past, many heart-chilling events of slavery's days, but well 
do I know that the present world does not desire to turn round 
and look back at even thrilling tragedy of the past. 

The black commerce on this central line running through 
Lancaster, Chester, and B.ucks Counties grew so large that those 
managers had to open a branch line further north to accommo- 
date the travel with safety. 

The action of those philanthropists in protecting, sheltering, 
feeding, and passing those fugitives northeastward to freedom 
aroused the slaveholders, and they combined and came down on 
the American Congress with the fury of a mountain avalanche 
and with the heat of a volcano, and demanded the aid and power 
of the Government to protect and to hold securely their mov- 
ing, walking property, and when it moved off to return it at the 
cost of the people, and during a tempestuous session of Con- 
gress, when dark dissension stalked the congressional halls, and 
Satan applauded, that Congress, on September i8, in the year of 
our Lord, 1850, enacted a law known as the Fugitive-slave Law, 
which I here place on record — an unrighteous law, not for the 
slave alone but for the white man who possessed a soul and manly 
independence. Under this law courts could be established at 
every crossroad to send runaway niggers back to slavery. 



CLAUSES IN THE FUGITIVE-SLAVE LAW WHICH RELATE TO THE 
CAPTURE AND RETURN OF SLAVES. 

" Article IV, Section 2. No person held to service or labor 
in any State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, 
in consequence of any law regulation therein, be discharged 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 269 

from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of 
the party to whom such service or labor may be due. 

*' Section 3. And be it further enacted, that the Circuit 
Courts of the United States, and the Superior Courts of each 
organized Territory of the United States shall from time to time 
enlarge the number of Commissioners, with a view to afford 
reasonable facilities to reclaim fugitives from labor, and to the 
prompt discharge of the duties imposed by this act. 

" Section 4. And be it further enacted, that the Commis- 
sioners above named shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the 
Judges of the Circuit and District Courts of the United States, 
in their respective circuits and districts within the several States, 
and the Judges of the Superior Courts of the Territories, sever- 
ally and collectively, in term time and vacation, and shall grant 
certificates to such claimants, upon satisfactory proof being 
made, with authority to take and remove such fugitives from 
service or labor, under the restrictions herein contained, to the 
State or Territory from which such persons may have escaped 
or fled. 

'* Section 5. And be it further enacted, that it shall be the 
duty of all marshals and deputy marshals to obey and execute 
all warrants and precepts issued under the provisions of this act 
when to them directed; and should any marshal or deputy mar- 
shal refuse to receive such warrant or other process when ten- 
dered, or to use all proper means diligently to execute the same, 
he shall, on conviction thereof, be fined in the sum of one thou- 
sand dollars to the use of such claimant, on the motion of such 
claimant, by the Circuit or District Court for the district of such 
marshal, and after arrest of such fugitives by such marshal, or 
his deputy, or whilst at any time in his custody under the pro- 
visions of this act should such fugitive escape, whether with or 
without the assent of such marshal or his deputy, such marshal 
shall be liable on his official bond to be prosecuted for the bene- 
fit of such claimant, for the full value of the service or labor of 
said fugitive in the State, Territory, or District whence he escaped; 
and the better to enable the said Commissioners, when thus 



270 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

appointed, to execute their duties faithfully and efficiently, in con- 
formity with the requirements of the Constitution of the United 
States, and of this act, they are hereby authorized and empowered 
within their counties respectively, to appoint in writing under 
their hands, any one or more suitable persons, from time to time, 
to execute all such warrants and other process as may be issued 
by them in the lawful performance of their respective duties; with 
authority to such Commissioners or the persons to be appointed 
by them to execute process as aforesaid, to summon or call to 
their aid the bystanders or posse comitahis of the proper county, 
when necessary to insure a faithful observance of the clause of the 
Constitution referred to, in conformity with the provision of this 
act, and all good citizens are commanded to aid and assist in the 
prompt and efficient execution of this law, whenever their serv- 
ices may be required, as aforesaid for that purpose, and such 
warrants shall run and be executed by said officers anywhere in 
the State within which they are issued. 

" Section 6. And be it further enacted, that when a person 
held to service or labor in any State or Territory in the United 
States has heretofore or shall hereafter escape into any other 
State or Territory of the United States, the person or persons to 
whom such service or labor may be due, or his, her, or their 
agent or attorney, duly authorized by power of attorney, in writ- 
ing, acknowledged and certified under the seal of some legal 
officer or Court of the State or Territory in which the same may 
be executed, may pursue and reclaim such fugitive person, 
either by procuring a warrant from some one of the courts. 
Judges, or Commissioners as aforesaid, of the proper circuit, dis- 
trict, or county for the apprehension of such fugitive from service 
or labor, or by seizing and arresting such fugitive, where the 
same can be done without process, and by taking, or causing 
such persons to be taken, forthwith before such court. Judge, or 
Commissioner, whose duty it shall be to hear and determine the 
case of such claimant in a summary manner, and upon satisfac- 
tory proof being made, by disposition or affidavit, in writing, to 
be certified to such court, Judge, or Commissioner, or by other 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 271 

satisfactory testimony, duly taken and certified by some court, 
magistrate, justice of the peace, or other legal officer, authorized 
to administer an oath, and take deposition under the laws of the 
State or Territory from which such person owing service or 
labor may have escaped, with a certificate of such magistracy or 
other authority, as aforesaid, with the seal of the proper court 
or ofificer thereto attached, which seal shall be sufficient to estab- 
lish the competency of the proof, and with proof also by affidavit 
of the identity of the person whose service or labor is claimed to 
be due as aforesaid, that the person so arrested does in fact owe 
service or labor to the person or persons claiming him or her, in 
the State or Territory from which such fugitive may have es- 
caped, as aforesaid, and that such person escaped, to make out 
and deliver to such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, a cer- 
tificate setting forth the substantial facts as to the service or 
labor due from such fugitive to the claimant, and of his or her 
escape from the State and Territory in which he or she was 
arrested, with authority to such claimant, or his or her agent or 
attorney, to use such reasonable force and restraint, as may be 
necessary, under the circumstances of the case, to take and re- 
move such fugitive person back to the State or Territory whence 
he or she may have escaped as aforesaid. In no trial or hearing 
under this act shall the testimony of such alleged fugitive be ad- 
mitted in evidence, and the certificates in this and the first sec- 
tion mentioned shall be conclusive of the right of the person or 
persons in whose favor granted, to remove such fugitive to the 
State or Territory from which he escaped, and shall prevent all 
molestation of such person or persons by any process issued by 
any court, judge, magistrate, or other person whomsoever. 

" Section 7. And be it further enacted that any person who 
shall knowingly and willfully obstruct, hinder, or prevent such 
claimant, his agent or attorney, or any person or persons law- 
fully assisting him, her, or them, from arresting such a fugitive 
from service or labor, either with or without process, as afore- 
said, or shall rescue, or attempt to rescue, such fugitive from 
service or labor, from the custody of such claimant, his or her 



272 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

agent or attorney, or other person or persons lawfully assisting 
as aforesaid, when so arrested, pursuant to the authority herein 
given and declared; or shall aid, abet, or assist such person so 
owing service or labor as aforesaid, directly or indirectly, to es- 
cape from such claimant, his agent or attorney, or other person 
or persons legally authorized as aforesaid; or shall harbor or 
conceal such fugitive, so as to prevent the discovery and arrest 
of such person, after notice or knowledge of the fact that such 
person was a fugitive from labor or service as aforesaid, shall for 
either of said offenses be subject to a fine not exceeding one 
thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months, 
by indictment and conviction before the District Court of the 
United States for the District in which such offense may have 
been committed, or before the proper court of criminal juris- 
diction, if committed within any one of the organized Territories 
of the United States ; and shall moreover forfeit and pay, by way 
of civil damages to the party injured by such illegal conduct, the 
sum of one thousand dollars for each fugitive so lost as aforesaid, 
to be recovered by action of debt, in any of the District or Terri- 
torial Courts as aforesaid, within whose jurisdiction the said 
offense may have been committed. 

" Section 8. And be it further enacted, that the marshals, 
their deputies, and the clerks of the said District and Territorial 
Courts, shall be paid for their services the like fees as may be 
allowed to them for similar services in other cases; and where 
such services are rendered exclusively in the arrest, custody, and 
delivery of the fugitive to the claimant, his or her agent or 
attorney, or where such supposed fugitive may be discharged out 
of custody for the want of sufficient proof as aforesaid, then such 
fees are to be paid in the whole by such claimant, his agent 
or attorney, and in all cases where the proceedings are before a 
commissioner, he shall be entitled to a fee of ten dollars in full 
for his services in each case, upon the delivery of said certificate 
to the claimant, his or her agent or attorney; or a fee of five dol- 
lars in cases where the proof shall not in the opinion of such 
commissioner warrant such certificate and delivery, inclusive of 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 273 

all services incident to such arrest and examination, to be paid 
in either case, by the claimant, his agent or attorney. The per- 
son or persons authorized to execute the process to be issued by 
such commissioners for the arrest and detention of fugitives from 
service or labor as aforesaid, shall be entitled to a fee of five dol- 
lars each for each person he or they may arrest and take before 
any such commissioner as aforesaid, at the instance and request 
of such claimant, with such other fees as may be deemed reason- 
able by such conmiissioner for such other additional services as 
may be necessarily performed by him or them; such as attending 
at the examination, keeping the fugitive in custody, and providing 
him with food and lodging during his detention, and until the 
final determination of such commissioner; and in general for 
performing such other duties as may be required by such claim- 
ant, his or her attorney or agent, or commissioner in the 
premises, such fees to be made up in conformity with the fees 
usually charged by the officers of the courts of justice within the 
proper district or county, as near as may be practicable, and 
paid by such claimant, their agents or attorneys, whether such 
fugitive from service or labor be ordered to be delivered to such 
claimants by the final determination of such commissioners or 
not. 

"Section 9. And be it further enacted, that upon affidavit made 
by the claimant of such fugitive, his or her agent or attorney, 
after such certificate has been issued, that he has reason to ap- 
prehend that such fugitive will be rescued by force from his or 
their possession before he can be taken beyond the limits of the 
State in which the arrest is made, it shall be the duty of the officer 
making the arrest to retain such fugitive in his custody, and to 
remove him to the State whence he fled, and there to deliver him 
to said claimant, his agent or attorney. And to this end, the 
officer aforesaid is hereby authorized and required to employ so 
many persons as he may deem necessary to overcome such force, 
and to retain them in his service so long as circumstances may 
require. The said officer and his assistants, while so employed, 
to receive the same compensation, and to be allowed the same 



274 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

expenses as they are now allowed by law for transportation of 
criminals, to be certified by the judge of the district within which 
the arrest is made, and paid out of the Treasury of the United 
States." 

Goodness! Good reader, our Congress has here made the 
law sure on the nigger. I must now go back to old history. 
Prince John informed me that his intention was, and had con- 
stantly been, to return to Africa; that he would have made the 
voyage long since, but that no vessel had sailed from Canada 
direct to Africa; that he would never risk his wife and children 
or self through an attempt to take passage from a United States 
port; that slave-catchers were present on the sailing of every 
black emigrant vessel to seize some of the blacks if possible, and 
advertised slaves were generally known; that he was at the pres- 
ent time preparing to embrace the first opportunity of safety; 
that he could sell his farm and stock at any time that he desired 
at a fair price; that it was a great disappointment to him when the 
expedition from New Orleans to Africa was broken up by the 
arrest of the captain, and he being doomed to slavery, which he 
should ever attribute to Mr. D. Lange of the firm of Rees & D. 
Lange, of Camp Street, New Orleans, and later of Philadelphia; 
that when he reached Africa he would work radical reforms in 
every quarter, although everything in that region had been 
greatly shattered during his absence, as he had learned from 
two of his subjects who were sold as slaves by his uncle to an 
African chief some months after he was ; they were finally landed 
in Cuba, to be soon run into Louisiana; those two blacks, he said, 
recognized him as their king whilst he was carrying bricks on 
his head at one of his master's Sewel's buildings. Those re- 
cently arrived slaves were able to give him valuable information 
respecting his kingdom, and they informed him of the tragical 
death of his uncle, the usurper of his father's crown, and of his 
mother's hard fate; that never-sleeping retribution met them 
very soon, whilst parading their gay winding path. 

Those two slaves, who were his subjects, were taken in a drove 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 275 

of slaves to the Red River cotton district, where they soon died 
from being fed on cotton-seed meal during the cotton-seed food 
craze in the South; this information, respecting their cruel and 
untimely taking off, he said reached him through a runaway 
slave, since his residence in Canada. 

Too bad that the king of a nation could not embark from the 
United States! 

Since Prince John has named cotton seed as food for slaves, 
I desire to place on record what has been published and known 
to hundreds now living. Previous to 1830, cotton seed was con- 
sidered of no value, and the whole bulk of it went to waste; rotted 
in great masses on the ground in the thirties. An interior physi- 
cian of an active mind experimented and claimed that this seed 
would make good and nutritious food for the negro slaves, and 
be worth for this purpose many millions annually to the planters 
of the South. 

Upon this assurance engines were purchased, mills were 
erected, and steam, horse, and ox power went to grinding cot- 
ton-seed meal; the purchase of Western corn ceased, and at that 
day but very little corn was produced in the far South; cotton 
seed was corn's superior in the minds of all for negroes' food. 
This meal, with an allowance of what was known and constantly 
advertised in the daily journals as negro pork, was the chief food 
for the slaves in many districts, especially in what was known as 
the Red River district. This negro pork, so called and adver- 
tised, was spoiled barrel pork and side meat, — sour, rusty, or 
tainted, — in other words, spoiled pork. It was most generally 
sold at auction, as it possessed no regular market value, but most 
of it did not require to be advertised to tell the world where it 
was located, for it possessed the power to make its presence 
known, for its odors cried aloud, and were quite as perceptible 
as the smell within Denmark that so many of renown have com- 
mented on. Sailor I can produce many of those ancient journals, 
which give notice of those sales of negro pork, naming the num- 
ber of barrels. 

The slaves soon fattened up on the cotton seed, and their 



276 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

masters felt happy and greatly elated on the prospect of cheap 
food and large profits, and negro property advanced in price at a 
rapid rate. But, alas! there was no fat on the negroes; they were 
but bloated up and unhealthy, and in time unable to move, and 
hundreds, many hundreds, died off, especially the young brood. 
To make the negroes' situation and distress worse, there was no 
corn near at hand, and starvation faced the poor slaves, and to 
eat the cotton-seed meal was sure death in time. Many died 
within a few months, others lingered for a year, but the deaths 
were very many, and the cause was w^ell known; but every en- 
deavor was used to suppress the cruel slaughter. 

We had now passed our proposed three days' sail and were 
homeward bound. Prince John's truly w^onderful recital of oc- 
currences had supplied my mind as well as my diary with to me 
many wonderful scenes and adventures, yet I requested him to tell 
me, more fully than he and sailor George Bedford had here- 
tofore done, the cause and the mode of his father's taking off, and 
which he had said led to his enslavement and his numerous hard- 
ships, as well as the death of his three kindred on board of the 
Spanish slaveship. *' The prince said that the unnatural transac- 
tion could be given in a very brief space of time, but it was with 
great sorrow that he referred to the foul and sad occurrences. 
His ancestors had for many centuries governed the vast terri- 
tory that he had just named to me, and content with prosperity 
existed within its boundaries, and his father. Big Lion, was re- 
spected by all his subjects. When his uncle Hop Frog, his 
father's brother, was requested by his father not to hang around 
the palace quite so constantly, but his Uncle Hop Frog was a 
diplomatist, and said his visits and desire \vere to see his brother 
the king, but if his kingly brother would occasionally visit him 
at his not far distant abode, then he would never more hang 
around his palace door. The king, my father, willingly con- 
sented to this, and soon thereafter with his retinue made a visit 
as requested, and on his arrival his followers were kindly cared 
for, and the king, my father, was received with great pomp and 
rejoicing, and Uncle Hop Frog said to him, Here have I erected 



ARRESTED AS PIRATES. 277 

for you a bower of beauty, and placed within it a pleasant couch 
where soothing zephyrs will lull you to sleep to dream of your 
good brother Hop Frog and your gentle queen. But, alas, 
that couch was composed of the branches and the leaves of the 
poisonous upas tree, and the king laid his weary limbs upon 
that couch to sleep the sleep of death, and my uncle Hop Frog, 
as heir to the crown, immediately appeared at the palace. 

'' Soon the cymbals announced a royal wedding, and its hilarity 
mingled with the mourners' sighs, and the wedding cortege 
closely followed in the funeral wake. The same catch of fish 
that supplied the mourners' meal were in the haste consumed 
half-cooked at the wedding feast. 

'' Time passed on apace, and my two subjects w^ho sighted me 
whilst toting bricks upon my head onto a building for master 
Sewel in New Orleans, and were sold into the Red River cotton 
district, and there perished from living on cotton seed and 
spoiled, unhealthy pork, together with hard labor. They informed 
me that after Uncle Hop Frog ascended the throne that all was 
tumult and discord wdthin my kingdom, and that soon a weak, 
subordinate king took advantage of the king's and my people's 
imbecility, and made a raid on them and seized the queen, my 
mother, and carried her into captivity to be placed as a servant 
at common work, for thorns of conscience to prick and sting her, 
and my Uncle Hop Frog, on account of great sorrow for the 
loss of his queen, soon wedded her younger sister; but, alas! 
during his first wedded moon, whilst bathing in the ocean's surf, 
his usual custom of each day, he died in the arms of an octopus." 
Thus, with great emotion, spoke Prince John as we neared our 
home landing on the St. Lawrence River in 1843; and then, upon 
Britain's wild St. Lawrence shore, I bid the prince, the sailor, 
the slave, and now farmer, a kind adieu, and strtfck my westward 
course by compass, toward Iowa, after close on to four days' sail. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

RETURN TO IOWA THE WILD GIRL AND DEEP TRAGEDY UPON 

THE STAGE OF LIFE JOHNSON's FATE. 

POURING my long journey back to the far Western frontier, I 
constantly thought that it was very unfortunate that the bad 
man Canadian Johnson should have robbed the hard-working, in- 
genious, and enterprising Mr. Bennett of his cattle, and then 
driven him through the law from his family and his home into 
exile, and also caused the industrious Warren's untimely death, 
and also the loss of the good Mr. Lewis' right arm, and was as- 
tonished that almost the whole small community should adhere 
to Johnson and consider Mr. Bennett a desperado, and that the 
loud-spoken Johnson was a wronged hero. He who had so 
greatly wronged Mr. Bennett brought on his own punishment: 
he blew his trumpet of fame, but the thunders of Heaven silenced 
the brazen trumpet's voice. 

I truly pitied the talented and extraordinary wild girl who had 
ever lived a checkered life, and from what the prophetess of the 
island said she must ever continue to live. In one respect the 
wild girl differed from all persons in Iowa or out of Iowa; for, 
with the exception of a few Indians, the wild beasts of the island, 
and her vast library of books that treated on almost every sub- 
ject, she never had a single playmate or associate to attract her 
attention or to occupy her thoughts or to speak to, and give her 
intelligent nature an idea. The consequence was she com- 
muned with her books and adopted their words or talk; she had 
never spoken to or even seen a white girl or boy until her father's 
death and his funeral on the main shore, and that was after she 
was a woman grown. The consequence was she talked as the 
books had debated and talked to her, using their language or 
words that they had used when communing with her during her 

378 



RETURN TO IOWA. 279 

whole life. Those lines, sentences, and paragraphs were so im- 
pressive and fitted for and to the subject, that even the illiterate 
looked at her with great astonishment and with open mouths to 
partake of the inspiration. 

When word struck the Iowa frontier that Johnson was an im- 
postor and a fugitive from justice, and was not the hero of the 
Thousand Isles, and that the wild girl was more kind than kin, 
her indignation was unbounded, and Johnson talked daggers. 

I soon after crossing the great Mississippi's waters, and strik- 
ing far-famed Iowa's eastern shore, continued my journey onward 
to frontier Quasqueton to investigate the situation of my labor 
there, and as hotel accommodations were then unknown, I 
quartered in our rough home-.made warehouse with one com- 
panion, but this warehouse was a grand palace when compared 
with my once canebrake couch, and some of my contracted fore- 
castles; but when in the upper heaven of pleasant dreams and 
sleep, a loud knock echoed through my lodging room which 
caused my companion to seize his trusty rifle. I with tallow 
candle in hand opened the door, when a sturdy prairie youth, a 
cowboy, with an honest but weather-beaten face and two pistols 
in his belt, stepped hastily in, holding up a dingy roll in his hand 
which both my companion and I supposed to be a section of 
bologna sausage, until with marked energy and resolution the 
cowboy exclaimed, '' Here, mister, the wild girl ordered me to 
take this letter to you, and tell you to carry it to Davenport the 
first time that you were on a scout in that direction, for the John- 
sons have sold all their stock in Dubuque, and all their other traps 
with their ranch to a stranger that has just arrived, and they have 
pulled up stakes and are now about taking a westward trail, for 
they turned their horses' heads west before they commenced 
packing in their plunder. That fellow Green is chief in com- 
mand ; I assisted until the wild girl ordered me to tote that letter 
to you. I expect very few except myself will be sorry that they 
vamoosed the ranch." I could but say. Yes, sir, I will deliver 
this letter within a few days. The most convenient post office 
to Quasqueton was then some thirty miles distant. 



aSo A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

The moment that the cowboy mounted his horse at our ware- 
house lodging room, my companion with great emotion and 
anxiety exclaimed, '' My two fine horses which are stabled near 
Johnson's will go with him! I know it, for he last week wanted 
to trade me cattle for them. When I came here to work I left 
them in my brother's charge, and at this hour of the night he is 
sound asleep, and Johnson has my horses. I must immediately 
get a horse and go to my home and see if they are in their stable 
or haltered to Johnson's wagon. If in Johnson's hands there will 
be an account with interest to settle, for I shall carry my rifle." 

Sailor I proposed that he should get Mr. Lambert's two horses 
and I would journey with him, as the distance was not over two 
miles, and aid him, but I told him that he would find his horses 
at their home in safety; that Johnson was anxious to quietly de- 
part; that the w^ild girl was the most courageous and dangerous 
of the two, because she believed that she was in the right and that 
the world had declared war against her. 

When we neared his and Johnson's home, I suggested that 
before we invaded Johnson's territory that he should see if his 
horses were at their home, and in his absence I would act the spy 
and reconnoiter the Johnson surroundings and actions. I 
halted my horse in some scrub timber within the sound of voices, 
and with caution I entered a small thicket near the Johnson habi- 
tation; no extra horses were in sight, but mother Eve's serpent 
told me to play the miserable eavesdropper, and I obeyed the 
serpent, and heard the word " Good-by " given to the new occu- 
pant and two others, one of them the cowboy of an hour pre- 
viously, as the bright moon told me. 

Johnson held the lines; the whip was applied to the spirited 
stolen Toronto horses, and they sprang forward in their west- 
ward track to within ten feet of my ambush, when the wild girl, 
with a look of indignation and quivering lip, convulsively seized 
the lines and brought the spirited horses back upon their 
haunches, and with the agility of an antelope sprang from the 
wagon, and with pallid cheeks and trembling limbs knelt down 
on the cold, frosted earth, and raising her eyes of a disputed color, 




THE WILD GIRL OF THE THOUSAND ISLANDS. 



THE WILD GIRL. 281 

and her right hand toward Heaven, besought the great Jehovah 
to forever dwarf and blight Fulton's Quasqueton, and that 
screaming night fiends drenched in dripping gore might shatter 
the nerves of Bennett and his crew; '' that thorns be their pillow, 
torment their sleep, no mercy given to wake and weep, with star- 
tled conscience steeped in wild dismay convulsive curses on the 
source of day." 

I had lashed myself to the stays of a mid-ocean, tempest- 
tossed ship, whilst leviathan waves swept her decks from stem to 
stern, and phosphoric light flashed from the raging billows, and 
Heaven's thunderbolts carried away the bowsprit and disman- 
tled the yardarms; I had faced the iron hail of artillery, and met a 
bayonet's charge without a shudder, but the malediction of the 
wild girl shattered all my bulk and compelled me to acknowledge 
myself a superstitious coward, and I resolved to sell Quasqueton 
the first opportunity that it would pay for the labor that the 
enterprising Mr. Bennett and Mr. Lambert had placed in it. 

After the wild girl's appeal to the great Supreme for vengeance 
on Bennett and his crew, a sunburned and frost-harrowed sailor 
moodily and slowly journeyed back to his Quasqueton ware- 
house bed, to toss and surge until the matin of the coming mor- 
row, on a mattress formed and created by ripping open several 
old grain sacks and sewing them together into a bed tick which 
was filled with prairie hay, with no downy pillow, but a roll of 
old grain sacks to match the ticking. Then too bad to contem- 
plate that the wild girl did with irony flash sulphuric flames at a 
poor sailor after requesting him to tote her bologna-sausage let- 
ter to Davenport. 

On the morrow I requested Mr. Lambert to use his best en- 
deavor to procure a purchaser for all of the company's property, 
both personal and real, then I took the very lonely prairie trail 
to Davenport. I delivered to Miss B. the dingy roll called by 
the frontier cowboy a letter; it was a roll of lemon-colored store- 
goods wrapping paper, and was closed by a few stitches of black 
thread, and on one side was printed the words " First Quality of 
English Breakfast Tea," and on the reverse was written the direc- 



282 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

tion of Miss B., who was to receive it. When I called Miss B. 
had more questions to ask than I could or dared to answer, and 
she desired me to tarry until she could overhaul the mysterious 
roll, as she might desire some information; but, my goodness! 
when the black stitches were severed, sheet after sheet with the 
advertisement and very good penmanship appeared on each 
sheet; upon learning the purport of the various parts and sub- 
jects, I begged permission to enter them on my diary, as they all 
appeared so very odd to Sailor I. 

COPY OF THE WILD GIRL'S LETTER. 

"Good Sis: For so have I ever called you; there has been 
trouble in this neck of the woods. I must write. I had no writ- 
ing paper, but I had better; it is good wrapping paper. I had no 
ink, but I found some dark berries like those of my island that 
make a good ink with proper evaporation. I have good pens 
taken from the wing of a wild goose that I shot, so you see that 
with but little trouble I am prepared to write you. 

" I bid you farewell for we go, yes we go, but not forever,; time 
cannot affection sever. Distance cannot part the bands united 
by celestial hands. When the sun with its bright rays soars in 
the East, the God of Day, remember that it shineth forth both in 
the East and Davenport; it is a mirror placed above, in which 
we see all those we love; so dear Sis, at an early morn, present 
thyself before its throne, for thy friend afar to look upon. 

" I hope to find a haven of rest, but I can assure you, good Sis, 
there is nothing picturesque in this my situation; nothing delect- 
able in my surroundings; yet, good Sis, I am happy whilst I can; 
I am merry while I may, for life's at most a narrow span, at best 
a short-lived day. 

" I was in Chicago one month, and but seven on the frontier, 
yet I have seen a bishop dance a reel, a sinner fast and pray, a 
knave at top of Fortune's wheel, and a good man cast away, yet, 
good Sis, I am happy whilst I can ; I am merry whilst I may, for 
life's at most a narrow span, at best a short-lived day. 



l^HE WILD GIRL. 283 

" Good Sis, it is best to tell you that I do not claim to be a 
poet, for if I did not tell you, then you might suppose that I made 
the claim; I write wild-cat poetry; I call it wild-cat because the 
attraction rests in the discord. I have nothing to say against 
wild cats; they were my best friends on the island, and I had in- 
tended to tell you all about them the day we shot the lone elk, 
but you girls on the mainland talk so constantly and fast that I 
could not tell you. 

" I must tell you that when I was a little toddler on the island, 
a big bear wanted to feed its cubs with me. It seized me when 
I was on one of my wanderings near the big woods, and started 
off with me into the dense bushes; I felt that the grip of the bear's 
ponderous arms was fast telling on my pneumogastric nerves, 
and that under the great pressure my heart would soon cease to 
pulsate, when a vigilant mother wild-cat that I had fed, and whose 
dear little kittens I had nursed and protected from the minx and 
the big hawks whilst she went to catch squirrels, took my part 
and sprang onto the bear's head, and then the big bear dropped 
me and trotted off in disgust. You do not know how slow and 
deliberately both the big and the little cub bears do eat Indian 
children. I was named after a wild-cat, and they are so cute 
and nice, as you express it; not so with the horrid bears. 

" I must now tell you something. All the people here have 
greatly changed ; they all claim to be extremely good ; I do hope 
they are. In evidence of goodness we have lately received two 
anonymous letters ordering us to leave this neck of woods; we 
do not depart on those orders, for we have just received a fresh 
supply of Dupont's best rifle powder, and our fort is well pro- 
visioned for a long siege. This was but one scene of the vicissi- 
tudes of what you call an eventful life. Yet I feared that some- 
one here is toting sins that would sink a substantial Sodom and 
Gomorrah. 

" Good Sis, I must describe anonymous to you : 

" Anonymous is a slimy, leprous, snakelike, crawling reptile 
that skulks in darkness and feeds and fattens on pollution. In- 
significant to look upon, yet as blighting and deadly as the upas, 



284 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

it defames the good and great, hoping to reduce them to its own 
degraded level through its blighting contact. It aims its barbed 
arrows from the shadow of a column, or from night's darkness; 
old age and infancy alike are its targets; it is nauseated by the 
pure light of day. 

*' Anonymous thrives on malignity, and its inner, unseen mind 
and brain are of an inferior and revengeful order. It spares 
neither age nor sex. It writes virtue a strumpet, the patriot a 
traitor, and the man of God a hypocrite. Such is anonymous. 
But he jests at scars who never felt a wound, and my supply of 
paper is nearly exhausted, and my ink is mingling with its 
dregs. 

" Good Sis, I have used my best endeavors to throw together 
a conglomeration of my island thoughts, readings, and lonely 
writings, when I communed with and received the applause of 
wild cats and owls, and I do hope you will not say that I have 
not succeeded in my conglomeration. Good Sis, I am so very 
sorry that we depart, yet I am so very glad. 

" I continue yours, 

" The Wild Girl." 

Mr. Lambert produced a purchaser for the mill and the lands ; 
then communicated with the exiled Mr. Bennett. The appli- 
cant for Quasqueton was a Mr. William W. Hadding, to whom 
I sold it for a mere bagatelle under a power of attorney from my 
young brother, Edwin R. Fulton, in whose name I had purchased 
it in to save our warehouse and lot from the tricky Mr. Green, 
and our money deposited with the postmaster from the hero 
Johnson, and our water power and land from the ownership 
of the then wealthy and influential surveyor. General George W. 
Jones, at the government sale of Buchanan's County lands on 
March 13, 1843. Said power of attorney is recorded in Book 
Eleven, at page 290. I perfected the sale to Mr. William W. 
Hadding, and my deed to Mr. Hadding is recorded in Book 
Eleven, at page 291, at Independence, Buchanan County, Iowa. 

At the time of the erection of the mill and improvements, the 



JOHNSON'S FATE. 285 

county of Buchanan was unorganized, and no city of Independ- 
ence there; it was an untrodden wilderness. 

Soon after the hero Johnson's exodus on a westward trail, word 
came back that he had purchased a woodman's hut and stable 
in the timber of Skunk River, and settled down. 

The Johnsons had not been in their new quarters many days 
when a man by the name of Peck, the terror of the Skunk River 
range, was out hunting deer, his chief occupation when not on an 
illegal raid. He saw smoke rising from the chimney of the re- 
cently vacant cabin, and signs of life in the surroundings. He 
entered the house to know the cause; his eyes fell on the queenly 
face and form of the wild girl, the Cleopatra of the Trans-Miss- 
issippi; his heart beat with astonishment; he was a vanquished 
desperado; his wanderings and calls continued in that direction, 
and his deer in the chase always brought up near the Johnson 
home; but soon from the wild girl's lofty zone he met an ignomini- 
ous doom, yet his bravado brought him constantly near the wood- 
man's hut, until Johnson, rifle in hand, forbid him evermore to 
enter or prowl around his domicile, and ordered him to imme- 
diately depart; he departed, but in a grating voice shouted back 
in defiance, " You overgrown Canuck, you have signed your 
death warrant; go and dig your grave." 

The county records bear witness that within a week a coro- 
ner's jury reported that from the testimony taken it was a 
dark and dismal night; the wind lashed the branches and twisted 
the trunks of the tall trees; the wolves howled on every side; 
Johnson sat on a rude stool before a log fire, smoking a corn- 
cob pipe; the wild girl was seated at a rickety table, reading 
Byron by the dim light of a home-made tallow dip; Bunyan's 
" Pilgrim's Progress " and Milton's " Paradise Lost " lay beside 
her. She had Just closed her book to kneel and say her evening 
prayers, when — a bright flash of light, a sharp report of a rifle, 
a shattered window, and Johnson dropped into eternity, and the 
wild girl passed a long and dreary night in a hut, far from any 
habitation, with a corpse. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



SAILING DISTANCES BETWEEN VARIOUS PORTS THE LENGTH OF 

THE CHIEF RIVERS OF THE WORLD THE HEIGHT IN FEET OF 

SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL MOUNTAINS OF THE WORLD — PROG- 
RESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 

A LMOST everyone is familiar with land distances, but very 
few are familiar with the ocean distances between ports and 
cities of the various nations, and the same will apply to the length 
of rivers and the height of the mountains of the world. The 
cities, rivers, and mountains number many hundreds; I will there- 
fore take from my diary and place some of the most noted on this 
record. 

It is valuable to a navigator to be able to correctly carry on his 
memory distances, latitude, and longitude of ports, bays, and 
harbors, as he does the location, names, and distances of the 
stars and the planets. A small error in distance or in latitude 
may throw a ship on a rocky, surf-washed beach to perish instead 
of safe moorings within a pacific bay or harbor. But recently 
a United States man-of war suffered disaster through, as her offi- 
cers claimed, an imperfect chart. 

A TABLE OF DISTANCES BETWEEN PORTS AND CITIES, BY THE 

SEAS AND THE OCEANS. 



Distances from New Orleans, to 



Liverpool, 

New York, 

Boston, 

Havana, Cuba, 

Galveston, Tex., 

Philadelphia, 

Vera Cruz, Mexico, 



MILES 

4750 

1,784 

2,000 

625 

444 

1,743 
816 



286 



SAILING DISTANCES BETWEEN PORTS. 



287 



Distances from New York, to 



Calcutta, via Cape Horn, 

Canton, China, via Cape Horn, 

Mazatlan, Mexico, via Cape Horn 

Baltimore, via Chesapeake Bay, 

Buenos Ayres, 

Rio Janeiro, Brazil, 

Pensacola, Fla., 

Pernambuco, Brazil, 

Cape Horn, 

Guayaquil, Ecuador, via Cape Horn 

Havana, Cuba, 

Monrovia, Liberia, 

Valparaiso, via Cape Horn, 

Vera Cruz, 

San Francisco, via Cape Horn, 



Distances from San Francisco, to 

Liverpool, via Cape Horn, 

Sandwich Islands, 

Shanghai, China, .... 
Sydney, Australia, 

Distances from Liverpool, England, to 

Calcutta, via Cape of Good Hope, . 

Boston, 

Canton, via Cape Horn, 
Guayaquil, Ecuador, via Cape Horn, 

New Orleans, 

Valparaiso, Chili, via Cape Horn, . 
San Francisco, via Cape Horn, 
Shanghai, China, via Cape of Good Hope, 
San Diego, via Cape Horn, . 
New York, 



MILES 

23,OCX) 

21,500 

18,000 
400 

6,121 

5.920 
1,750 
4,780 

8,220 

14,300 

1,280 

3,850 

12,900 
2,200 

18,850 



17,350 

2,082 

5,200 
6,532 



16,000 

2,880 

20,000 
12,800 

4,750 

11,400 

17,350 
18,500 

17,000 

3,024 



288 



A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 



A voyage round the world -from Liverpool, England. 

From Liverpool to Cape of Good Hope, 
Cape of Good Hope to Melbourne, Australia 
Melbourne to Port Nicholson, 
Port Nicholson to Cape Hern, 
Cape Horn, home to Liverpool, 

Making a total distance of 



MILES 
6,590 

5>65o 
1,200 

4,150 
7,860 

25,450 



These figures present the appearance of this our world as being 
very large, but there are other worlds now called stars, a single 
one of which would make ten worlds as large as this our earth. 



THE LENGTH OF THE CHIEF RIVERS OF THE WORLD. 

The Chief Rivers of North America. 

MILES 

The Mississippi, from its source to the Gulf of Mexico, . 2,902 
Missouri, from its source and its connection with the 

Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, .... 4,300 

St. Lawrence, ......... 2,000 

Rio Grande, 1,800 

Yellowstone, 1,600 

Mackenzie, . 1,500 

Red River, U. S., 1,500 

Arkansas, 1,300 

Oregon, " . . . . 1,200 

River Platte, 1,200 

Kansas, 1,200 

Tennessee, 1,200 

Ohio, 1,000 

Rio Colorado, 800 

Washita, . . . 800 

Neosho, 800 

Brazos, ......,,,. 650 



CHIEF RIVERS OF THE WORLD, 



289 



The Chief Rivers of North America — Continued. 



Alabama, 

Cumberland, 

Wisconsin, 

Des Moines, 

White River, 

Wabash, 

Apalachicola, 

St. Peter's, 

Osage, 

Susquehanna, 

Potomac, 

Savannah, 

Rio Gila, 

Illinois, 

James, 

San Joaquin, 

Sacramento, 

Iowa, 

Penobscot, 

Nueces, 

Sabine, 

Connecticut, 

Hudson, . 

Delaware, 

Kaskaskia, 

Skunk River, Iowa, 



Rivers of South America. 



Amazon, . 

Rio De La Plata, 

Tocantins, 

Rio Negro, 

Orinoco, , 



MILES 
600 
600 
610 
600 
600 

560 

360 
440 
400 
400 

370 
360 

355 
350 
350 
350 
340 

325 
310 
300 
290 

250 



3,550 
2,150 

1,360 

1,270 

1,150 



290 



A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 



Rivers of South America — Continued. 



MILES 

Xingu, 1,240 


Japura, 












1,200 


Tapajos, . 










. 


• 990 


Putumayo, 












■ 990 


Jurua, 












840 


Jutay, 












800 


Rivers of Asia. 


Yang-tse-Kiang, China, ...... 2,350 


Yenisei, Russia, Asia, 












. 3*230 


Obi, 














. 2,770 


Lena, 














2,660 


Amoor, Manchooria, 














• 2,740 


Hoang Ho, China, 














2,280 


Indus, Hindostan, 














. 2,200 


Cambodia, Anam, 














1,500 


Ganges, Hindostan, . 














2,000 


Euphrates, Tartary, 














1,720 


Sihon, 














1,300 


Amoo, Tartary, 














1,600 


Menam, 














1,070 


Rivers i 


n Europe. 


Volga, Russia in Europe, 


• 2,350 


Danube, Turkey and Austria, 












1,720 


Dnieper, Russia, 












1,240 


Don, Russia, 












1,100 


Dwina, Russia, 












1,000 


Rhine, Germany and Holland, 












650 


Vistula, Poland, 












650 


Loire, France, 












620 


Elbe, Prussia, . 












580 


Rhone, France, 














540 



CHIEF RIVERS OF THE WORLD. 



291 



Rivers in Europe — Continued. 



MILES 



Tagus, Spain, .... 


. 


. 


. 


. 


520 


Seine, France, ........ 480 


Ebro, Spain, 400 


Po, Italy, 380 


Shannon, Ireland, 210 


Thames, England, 200 


Tiber, Italy, 210 


Rivers of Africa. 


Nile, Egypt, 3,550 


Niger, 3,000 




Orange, Cape Colony, 1,050 


Gambia, 800 


Zambezi, Mozambique, 900 


MOUNTAINS OF THE WORLD HEIGHT IN FEET. 


Mountains of North America. 


Mt. St. Elias, Russia, America, 


. 17,770 


Popocatapetl, Mexico, 










17,700 


Orizaba, Mexico, 










17,700 


Iztaccihuatl, Mexico, 










15700 


Mt. Hooper, British America, 










15,680 


Nevada, Mexico, 










15.500 


Sierra Nevada, Mexico, 










15.440 


Rocky Mountains, . 










15,800 












15,000 


Sierra De Cobre, Cuba, . 










9,000 












9,010 


Black Mt., North Carolina, . 










6,460 


Mt. Washington, 










6,220 


Peaks of Otter, Virginia, 










4,250 



292 



A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 



Mountains of South America 



Aconcagna, Chilian Andes, 
Chimborazo, Ecuador, 
Nevada De Soreto, Bolivia, 
Areqiiipa, Peru, 
Cotopaxi, Ecuador, 
Tolima, New Granada, . 
Pichincha, Ecuador, 
Silla De Caracas, Venezuela, . 
Mt. Sarmiento, Terra Del Fuego, 



23,900 
21,420 
21,146 
20,500 
18,895 
18,000 

15*940 
8,700 
6,820 



Mountains of Asia. 



Kunchinginga, Himalaya, 

Jewahir, Himalaya, 

Hindoo-Koosh, Himalaya, 

Chumalaree, Thibet, 

Mt. Ararat, Armenia, 

Awatska, Kamchatka (volcano), 

Mt. Lebanon, Syria, 

Mt. Olympus, Asia Minor, 

Mt. Horeb, Arabia, . . . 

Mt. Sinai, Arabia, . 

Mt. Melin, China, . 

Mt. Ida, Asia Minor, 

Mt. Sion, Palestine, 

Mt. Carmel, Palestine, 

Mt. Tabor, Palestine, 



28,178 

25,740 
20,800 

23,930 
17,100 
8,760 
9,520 
9,100 
8,580 
7,500 
8,200 

5,440 
2,700 
2,250 
2,050 



Mountains of Europe. 

Mt. Elbruz, Caucasus, 
Mt. Kasbeck, Caucasus, 
Mt. Blanc, Alps, 
Monte Rosa, Alps, 
Furca, Alps, 



17,700 

15,345 
15,781 

15.585 
14,040 



PRINCIPAL MOUNTAINS OF THE WORLD. 



293 



Mountains of j 


Eur op 


w — Continued. 






Cenis, Alps, 11,460 


Great St. Bernard, Alps, 












11,000 


Mulahacen, Spain, . 












11,670 


Mt. ^tna, Sicily (volcano), 












10,963 


Orbelus, Greece, 












8,540 


Guadarrama, Spain, 












. 8,496 


Velino, Naples, 












8,397 


Sneehattan, Norway, 












8,125 


Skagtolten, Norway, 












. 8,097 


Mt. Parnassus, Greece, . 












8,000 


Mt. Olympus, Greece, 












6,500 


Helicon, Greece, 












5,740 


Puy De Dome, France, . 












• 4,750 


Ben Macdhui, Scotland, . 












4,418 


Ben Nevis, Scotland, 












4,358 


Ben More, Scotland, 












3,900 


Mt. Vesuvius, Naples (volcanic), 










3,978 


Mt. Hecla, Iceland (volcanic). 










3,970 


Snowdon, Wales, . 










3,558 


Skiddaw, England, 










3,020 


Stromboli, Lipari Islands (volcanic) 


} 








3,000 


Jura, Scotland, .... 










2,470 


Plinlimmon, Wales, 










2,460 


Rock of Gibraltar, Spain, 










1,439 


Mountains of Oceanica. 


Mauna Kea, Sandwich Islands, 18,400 


Mauna Loa, Sandwich Islands, 16,020 


Gunong Demp, Sumatra (volcano), .... 12,465 


Ben Lomond, Van Diemen's Land, .... 4,200 


Mountains of Africa. 


Mt. Kilimandjaro, 20,000 


Mt. Kenia, .... 






• 


. 


. 


19.500 



294 



A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 



Mountains of Africa — Continued. 



Mt. Keesh, Abyssinia, . 
Wiltsin, Morocco, . 
Clarence Peak, Fernando Po, 
Nieuveldt, Cape of Good Hope, 
Mt. Isle Bourbon (volcano), . 
Frigo, Canary Islands, . 
Romberg, Cape of Good Hope, 
Devil's Peak, Cape of Good Hope, 
Diana's Peak, Helena, . 
Cape of Good Hope, 

Thus says my infallible diary. 



15,000 

1 1 ,200 

10,650 

10,000 

7,680 

7,400 

5,000 

3,315 
2,692 

1,000 



EXTENT OF TERRITORY AND THE MARCH OF PROGRESS. 

Our great Mississippi between its outlet at the Gulf of Mexico 
and its source in the distant heights of the north, and the Alle- 
ghenies on the east and the Rocky Mountains on the west, drains 
an area greater than England, France, Germany, Holland, Bel- 
gium, and Denmark combined, and is possessed by a people pre- 
pared to test their energy and ability, in all that is useful to man, 
with the people of any quarter of the globe. 

It was but yesterday that this territory was an untrodden wil- 
derness; we faced every hardship and privation, and here planted 
the Stars and Stripes to stay, and fearlessly laid the foundations 
of our domiciles on its fertile plains. Since that day what a great 
change has taken place! Where then stood the deserted wig- 
wam of the retreating Indian, now cities rise. Where then the 
elk, deer, and bufifalo grazed unmolested, now vast fields of golden 
wheat appear to gladden the farmer's heart and repay him for his 
toil, and as the sculptor causes the granite and the marble to 
speak, and the painter breathes form and life upon the canvas, 
so have we here on those once dreary prairies created a scene of 
life and beauty; the prairie grass has given place to the garden 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 295 

and the vineyard; the hazel thicket to the blooming rose, and the 
Indian trail to the promenade of the fair. 

In comparing our progress with other like communities or 
nations, when many times our age, history informs me that we 
have in the useful arts and sciences, as well as in agriculture, 
outstripped all nations or peoples during the same period of ex- 
istence. Never has a people created a like number of handsome 
private and public buildings and vast factories; never has a like 
number of persons created and possessed the same extent of rail- 
roads, telegraph and electric lines, or possessed an equal number 
of schoolhouses, colleges, and churches — never. 

History informs me that this is no vain boast, but plainly says 
that no community, smaller or larger, since man's creation, can 
present a parallel, and like the mighty river that drains its waters, 
we move steadily on to empire and greatness. We possess within 
our borders all the elements of independence and greatness. We 
have amongst us teachers, statesmen, and philosophers; our West 
abounds in mineral wealth; our soil produces in abundance all 
the varieties of grain and fruits known to its latitude. We pos- 
sess a healthy climate, a hardy and energetic people, who breathe 
the free air of liberty with comprehensions as broad as the country 
we owe allegiance to, and should great objects arise worthy of 
our action and consideration, we the descendants of the pilgrims 
who sought liberty in the wilderness of a new world, may be 
called upon as arbitrators in diplomacy or on the battlefield. We 
will never sully the fair name we inherited. Our actions will not 
be as pygmies, but as men worthy of this fair and fertile land, 
which Heaven in its wisdom thought proper to place under our 
stewardship. 

All this within and adjacent to the valley of the great Mississ- 
ippi; the most extensive and the most fertile valley without a 
doubt in the known world. The Mississippi, independent of its 
liberal source, is fed by twenty-two rivers, ten of which are navi- 
gable for a greater or less distance, and was England's river 
Thames run into the Mississippi at Davenport, la., during an 
ordinary stage of water, it would raise the big river but four- 



296 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

teen inches at St. Louis, and were the waters of the river Seine 
of France and the river Rhine of Holland and all the rivers of 
Germany added to the flow at an ordinary stage of the Mississ- 
ippi's flow, those rivers, all combined, would not bring the Miss- 
issippi up to high-water mark at her outlet at the Gulf of Mexico. 

Notwithstanding my great disaster in the mill-building line at 
Quasqueton, through the action of the wild girl, as declared by 
all in Buchanan County, I in time to aid progress and civiliza- 
tion on its westward roll, built two large steam flouring mills in 
the city of Davenport, the first ever erected in that city, and 
erected the third steam flour mill in connection with an enter- 
prising Hungarian, Mr. Fejervary, at the town of Fulton, Mus- 
catine County. 

But my work did not, could not cease; a wilderness was to be 
subdued, and who was more rugged for the task than a sailor who 
had weathered many storms? 

In looking back some centuries, I plainly see Rome organiz- 
ing for the conquest of the world ; Assyria in her palmy days, and 
the once powerful monarchy of Persia then boasting of her prog- 
ress, but now virtually blotted out, and the aged European king- 
doms putting on airs of greatness. America's new world, with 
its factories, railroads, canals, schools, colleges, and churches, 
her genius and enterprise tower above their boasted greatness. 

The Old World has its Thames and its Volga, but it has no 
Mississippi or Amazon; it has its tame Hellespont, but it has no 
Niagara. It has its Bosphorus, but it has no Gulf of Mexico. It 
has its Alps and its Caucasus, but it has no Rocky Mountains 
and Sierra Nevada. It has its haughty, fiery Vesuvius, but it has 
no Bunker Hill. 

Progress, civilization, and commerce had their birth in India. 
It slowly rolled into Assyria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, then 
more slowly found its way into Spain and England; then it 
floated westward on the ocean's waves to Plymouth Rock. It 
did not long linger amongst the scrub oaks and the barren soil 
of New England, but rolled its way with increased momentum 
westward, and leaped the rapid-moving floods of the Mississippi, 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 297 

where Sailor I stood by to lend a hand to help it roll in its west- 
ward course, and saw it create seven States or Territories west of 
the Mississippi and east of the Rocky Mountains range; those 
Rocky Mountains did not prove a barrier to its progress; it 
reached the upper timber line, not to tarry, but to leap over their 
snow-capped summits to continue its roll upon the far westward 
plains to plant its commerce and civilization on the coast of the 
Pacific. 

As a witness I must record from my diary early westward prog- 
ress. In the forties Illinois and Iowa had no railroads, but they 
were coming in use in the Eastern States, and I knew that they 
were necessary to develop and build up the West. I went to 
work at the onset entirely alone to raise stock to build a railroad 
between Rock Island and Chicago, in Illinois, a distance of 181 
miles. I worked constantly and hard, neglecting my individual 
interests. I had in December, 1842, and in January, 1843, made 
a survey for a railroad bridge across the Mississippi River and on 
west to the Cedar River, at my own cost, and published my re- 
port, which is now before me. After this survey I never ceased 
action until the railroad and the bridge were in success- 
ful operation. 

Time's clock recorded fifty-six years when the editor of a his- 
torical journal requested information respecting world-building, 
which Sailor I gave him as follows to place on his record. 

" PIONEER BRIDGE— IT WAS FIRST CROSSED FORTY-TWO YEARS 

AGO. 

" An Interesting Historical Story Written for the ' Democrat ' by 
Hon. A. C. Fulton—Ceremonies Attending the Laying of the 
Corner Stone. 

" Davenport, January 29. [Editor of the Davenport ' Demo- 
crat.'] Some time ago you requested my knowledge of the erec- 
tion of the first bridge to span the great Mississippi River, the 
western abutment of which rested on the river's bank in Daven- 
port's sixth ward. 



298 A LIFE'S VOYAGE 

" I have since my then report to you unearthed my notes 
respecting that pioneer bridge, which I desire to place on your 
records for future generations. 

" I could give you, and the world, an extended history of this 
great and historic structure from its incipiencey on down to its 
useful life and removal, but as I would be compelled to name 
self, modesty forbids the act. 

" Yesterday was fifty-six years and one month since the sound- 
ing rod was used to reach the river's rock bottom, and the com- 
pass gave the bearings for the proposed bridge, and soon there- 
after a report of the result was published, and the undertaking 
advocated off of the platform of the ancient schoolhouse located 
on Harrison Street, where now stands the City Hall. A few of 
Davenport's citizens now living were listeners to the schoolhouse 
pleadings. The iron horse reached the eastern shore of the 
Mississippi at Rock Island on February 22, 1854, and there 
waited for the link that was to connect Iowa with the Atlantic 
Ocean, and give it a path to the Pacific. 

" The Mississippi Railroad Bridge Company was organized in 
1853, Henry Farnam chief engineer and president. 

*' The ceremony of laying the corner stone of the structure took 
place on September i, 1854. Joseph Knox, Esq., of Rock 
Island delivered an address, followed by the applause of his audi- 
ence, to be echoed back by the timbered bluffs of the Illinois 
shore. 

'* John Warner of Rock Island had commenced the stonework 
on the river piers in January, 1854. And during the same montlf 
Stone & Boomer of Chicago, and Boyington of Davenport, were 
at work on the woodwork. The river portion of the bridge rested 
on five stone piers 7 feet wide at the top by 35 feet in length, and 
running from 35 to 39 feet in height. Each pier rested on solid 
rock bottom. Tliere were also two abutment piers 30 feet^in 
height. The draw-pier was 32 feet in diameter at the top, and 
was flanked by a crib of hewn timber, 350 feet in length by 40 
feet wide, filled in with stone. The turn-table was 285 feet in 
length, and on each side of it was a clear channel of 120 feet in 



PROGRESS. CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 299 

width. Each span was 250 feet in length, and the bridge was 
1582 feet in length. There was a little over 1,000,000 feet of 
timber, 220,000 pounds of cast-iron, and 400,000 pounds of 
wrought-iron in the structure. The secretary of the company 
reported the cost of the bridge to be $350,000. 

" The draw for the river's commerce was first swung open on 
April 9, 1856, and on April 21, 1856, at 7 o'clock p. m., the loco- 
motive Des Moines entered Iowa by the Mississippi's first bridge, 
and passenger and freight trains have followed in the wake of this 
pioneer locomotive Des Moines up to this date, January 29, 1898. 

" Respectfully Yours, 

'' A. C. Fulton." 

Whilst this great work was in progress in Illinois, I conceived 
the idea to petition the General Government for a grant of land 
extending across the State of Iowa from Davenport to Council 
Bluffs, and after long and hard work the land was granted, and 
everybody and their friends stepped in because a certainty ap- 
peared in sight. A contract was let to build the Mississippi & 
Missouri Railroad, and on the first day of September, 1853, with 
great eclat, the ground was broken and the first tie was laid by 
the lialf aborigine, the far-famed and worthy Mr. Antoine Le 
Claire, and A. C. Fulton was marshal of the day, and 320 miles 
of first-class railroad was constructed, and it is now, in 1896, 
operated and is one of Iowa's leading railroads. 

During my long and arduous labor and journeys for months 
through sparsely settled frontier Iowa to procure memorials to 
Congress for this grant of land to create a railroad between the 
Mississippi and the Missouri rivers on a westward line from the 
city of Davenport, and to pick up subscriptions of stock toward 
building the road, I encountered many rough seas and foaming 
breakers that would require a great many pages to recite, the 
most formidable of which came in the form of a talented and ener- 
getic gentleman from Ireland, a Mr. O'Connor, an attorney at 
law whom the good people of the prosperous and then great com- 
mercial city of Muscatine, once Bloomington, employed to inter- 



3^0 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

cept and block my proceedings unless I would insert in my sub- 
scription lists and in my memorials to Congress, the words ** from 
or via Muscatine," as they claimed that a railroad running near 
and north of their city would sound their death-knell as a com- 
mercial city, but the renowned and talented attorney, Mr. O'Con- 
nor, had been raised in a bandbox, and had never been a sailor, 
or even rested on a canebrake couch, or been tossed by boister- 
ous waves, and could not travel in darkness and storms. Even 
with his high-bred and fleet team of two well-groomed blacks he 
could not keep pace with my scrub Kentucky bay, that from my 
action well knew that a race for a purse, not of thousands, but 
of millions was the stake, and was willing to hastily journey over 
bleak prairie oceans, wade through the miry sloughs and hunt 
its course through the untraveled timber during storms and 
tempests. The consequence was that the good speaker, Mr. 
O'Connor, could not keep up in the procession to attend the pre- 
viously called meetings day after day, and night after night, in the 
many and widely spread towns and villages, and when he did the 
records and the results bore witness that Sailor I, who knew the 
ropes and could sail a ship, got over one hundred signatures to 
his ten, and ten shares of stock subscribed to his one; those facts 
I have on my diary, and they are known by hundreds. 

Oh, how hard did I work alone, and paid all my expenses! 
For a long season the well-paid Mr. O'Connor and self were the 
sole workers in the railroad field. The good and talented Mr. 
O'Connor, although he and his friends preferred no railroad at 
all if it had to occupy my line, was of great value in the under- 
taking; he advanced and opened up public interest in the enter- 
prise and schooled Sailor I, for he was a good teacher, but he 
taught with great severity. 

Had the railroad pioneer, Lawyer O'Connor, been successful 
in his resolute campaign, Davenport would have been stricken 
from Iowa's map and records as a city, and be classed with the 
once historic Rockingham of Scott County, Iowa. 

I must take from my diary and place on this record two of the 
many, a great many occurrences that took place during my 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 301 

voyages to place Iowa on the trail to greatness. I had a meet- 
ing on the railroad subject called at the city of Tipton, the county 
seat of Cedar County, Iowa, and although Tipton was not on the 
proposed railroad line, the enterprising people felt a great interest 
in a railroad that would bring Chicago and New York westward, 
and they were friendly and willing to support a road that would 
accomplish the object. 

This meeting was to take place at their courthouse of an after- 
noon, but on my journey on the open prairie, with no well-trav- 
eled roads, in crossing a washout, my good horse missed stays 
and capsized the buggy, breaking a shaft; no habitation in sight; 
a sad plight to be in, but the tops of the trees of a small grove 
some two miles distant appeared rising above the prairie's sur- 
face; I secured my horse to the disabled buggy, and on the 
double-quick marched to the distant grove; I went aloft of one of 
the hickory trees, and with my keen knife amputated two of the 
slender limbs which I lashed with my bridle reins to the shaft, and 
made it secure and safe, and I reached Tipton two hours before 
meeting time. I drove around and through the town with a 
large poster tacked to each side of my crippled buggy; on the 
posters was printed '' a railroad meeting at the courthouse at two 
o'clock." This extraordinary exhibit attracted the attention of 
everybody and their wives. I placed my tired and hungry horse 
in a stable before a good supply of oats and hay, and hastened 
to the courthouse, for I had been informed that a State council 
of the Methodist Church had possession of that edifice. 

When I reached the courtroom the presiding officer was put- 
ting the question of adjourning to meet at 2 o'clock p. m., the 
very same hour of my meeting. I hastened through the solemn 
assembly up to the altar platform, and requested the presiding offi- 
cer to call a halt, which was an unnecessary proceeding as I had 
already called a halt and a sensation through my hasty and earnest 
talk with their presiding officer. I stated to the officer and the 
meeting that I had called a railroad meeting at the hour to which 
they had adjourned, not knowing that they were in session, and 
that I had driven over the town and given notice of the railroad 



302 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

meeting. The kind official stated the situation to his brothers, for 
so he called them, and proposed, as they were through with the 
important questions of the session, and many of the distant mem- 
bers were to depart for their homes, he would suggest that they 
surrender the courthouse to the stranger, and wind up their ses- 
sion in the schoolhouse; all hands by a rising vote gave their 
sanction, and I thanked the august assembly by using some 
choice and appropriate words that I had picked up from sailor 
Sapoles. 

Two o'clock and a large assembly of people arrived, amongst 
whom were many of the church delegates, and also Lawyer 
O'Connor, who had skipped the little Rochester meeting to make 
his presence sure at Tipton. Mr. O'Connor was awarded the 
floor; he made a long and learned talk against Sailor I and my 
railroad — even said that I rushed through the town with a third- 
class plowhorse and a crippled buggy, blowing a tin horn, and 
railroad bills nailed to my buggy and flapping in the air, but at the 
eleventh hour my say on the railroad subject came, and I in a 
plain way, with some figures mingled with words, presented to 
the savants of Cedar County my position and my railroad line, 
together with the benefits to be derived from a railroad passing 
through Iowa on its westward course to the Pacific Ocean. 

When the lists were opened for signatures to the petitions to 
Congress on the two separate lines of roads, I counted at the 
rate of twenty to one in my favor. Hundreds of witnesses of 
those early railroad days must yet walk the earth as witnesses of 
those then important acts. 

I must take from my diary a second act of mishap, and place 
it on this my record of a life's voyage. I was journeying to 
the Raccoon Forks of the Des Moines River to ascertain the 
practicability and the cost of bridging that river, and to view the 
intervening section of my line. Night's darkness intercepted 
and spread over me; I lost the dim road, and no North Star was 
out to give me the compass points of my journey, and all of a 
sudden my horse stopped before a fence, an unpleasant situation. 
I took a larboard tack, but goodness ! within some thirty minutes 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 303 

I struck a second fence. I knew that something was out of joint, 
and landed to find that I was on the inside of a stubble field, and 
had struck its various fences. In looking for an outlet I dis- 
covered a vast pile of thrashed wheat straw, which I considered a 
lucky find, as darkness was on its increase. It was not a cold 
night, yet a chilly northwest wind was on its journey. I selected 
a strategical corner of the straw pile, ran up my buggy in posi- 
tion, and piled up straw against and under it so as to form a ram- 
part between my horse and the wind ; the horse went to work eat- 
ing the straw, and I dug a trench down into the straw, and took 
shelter and slept in it until I heard the prairie chickens cooing 
the approaching morning, when I departed from the large wheat- 
stubble field by the open passage through which I had entered 
in the darkness and resumed my journey to the Raccoon Forks of 
the Des Moines River. 

The well and extensively known pioneer, Mr. J. M. Eldridge, 
on February 2, 1884, wrote the Davenport " Gazette," respecting 
his early travels and the infancy of railroads in the Far West, 
which I have to place on my record, as I have the " Gazette " of 
that day before me, and it embraces an act within a life's voyage. 

Mr. Eldridge is a man of worth, a world-builder, and of more 
value to the world than a score of loud-talking politicians, who 
destroy columns of space in the daily journals and tarnish the 
history of fame. 



'* A MOUNTAIN JOURNEY FOR THE FAR WEST EARLY RAILROAD 
WORK HENNEPIN CANAL. 

"'Editor of the "Gazette": 

" ' I observe an article in your late Forum headed " Wake Up," 
which calls to my mind early railroad talk and work, and we now 
greatly require a little of the same spirit. On my first journey 
to Davenport in 1845, I had to stage it over the rough and rugged 
mountain roads from Chambersburg, Pa., to Pittsburg; thence 
by river to Cincinnati, then by stage to Davenport. A few 
months thereafter I made a return journey East by way of the 



304 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Mississippi and Ohio rivers to Pittsburg, and over the mountains, 
which, after constant travel, occupied three full weeks. To jour- 
ney, then, from the East to the Mississippi, was considered a far 
greater feat than to cross the Atlantic. I made a third of those 
long journeys on taking up my permanent residence in Iowa. 

*' * When on my exploring visit here, I wandered one evening 
into an old frame schoolhouse on Harrison Street, where Mr. A. 
C. Fulton was earnestly speaking of his Mississippi River Bridge 
survey, and his examination of a railroad line to Chicago, and 
west to the Raccoon Forks of the Des Moines River, in 1842. 
He there declared that persons within the audience would live to 
see an iron band connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific Ocean. 
Taking Mr. Fulton's early thoughts and work, there is not the 
least doubt but that he is the first person that ever said Pacific 
Railroad. 

" ' Mr. Fulton's report of his survey was published in a Phila- 
delphia journal in 1845, from which I make the following ab- 
stracts : 

" ' " There are several points where the Mississippi can be 
easily bridged, the most feasible of which is at Rock Island, 
where the river is narrower than it is at any other point between 
its mouth and the Falls of St. Anthony, with high rock banks and 
rock bottom, the channel of deep water, varying from 150 to 300 
feet in width, no low or inundated lands in the vicinity. 

" ' " To reach this point through Illinois in any direction, by 
railroad, will require less grading for the same distance than any 
other route or section in the Union. Two-thirds of the distance 
across the State is now ready to receive the rails, nature having 
leveled the surface of the prairie. 

" ' " Westward you follow the divide between the Wapsipini- 
con and the Cedar, until you reach 42° 30', then cross the Cedar." 

** * Then, 1842, St. Anthony and vicinity was a wilderness. 
Thereafter, in 1846, Mr. Fulton got up and personally circulated 
a memorial through Western Iowa requesting Congress to grant 
land to this railroad. The request was granted. This action and 
the forward progress of the Rock Island & Chicago railroad, 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 305 

aroused the people, and a delegate convention was held at Iowa 
City on the 20th of February, 1850. 

*' * The following delegates, with a home band of music, 
represented Scott County; A. H. Owens, A. C. Fulton, W. Bar- 
rows, Dr. White, T. D. Eagle, Jno. M. Eldridge, C. M. Peck, Jno. 
Robinson, A. H. Davenport, E. Cook, J. Parker, Judge Grant, 
Judge Mitchell, Dr. Witherwax, John Forrest, J. L. Center, Har- 
vey Leonard, Lyman Carpenter, R. Christy, A. Sanders. Three- 
fourths of these veterans are now within the tomb. 

" ' There were many conflicting interests in locating a line, and 
a royal hot and lively contest took place during two days' and 
one night's session. Muscatine was among the dissatisfied. She 
had a delegation of eighty men, many of them men of eminence, 
of whom I will mention: Judge Williams, Attorneys Wicher, 
Butler, and O'Connor. 

" ' By common consent Mr. A. C. Fulton was pitted against the 
opposition. To shorten up, I will quote from that week's 
" Democratic Banner: " 

" ' " A move was made to deprive the delegates of Moscow and 
adjoining townships of their seats. Mr. A. C. Fulton defended 
their rights and contended that they were duly appointed and 
gave evidence of the whole procedure. They were admitted." 

" * The " Gazette " of that day reports that the opposition en- 
deavored to discredit and throw out a map that Mr. Fulton had 
prepared, alleging that it did not correctly represent the rivers or 
the land. Mr. Fulton put and held them on the defensive. The 
map was adjudged to be correct. In the " Gazette " of March 7, 
and the " Democratic Banner " of the same week, I find the fol- 
lowing mention: 

" * " Mr. Fulton: We believe it was admitted that this gentle- 
man made the best practical address which was delivered before 
the railroad convention. He is a practical business man, and one 
of untiring industry and perseverance. We are sorry, however, 
to see his great zeal and the services which he has rendered 
toward the proposed Davenport & Council Bluflfs Railroad, 
made subject of abuse in the last Muscatine papers and the appH- 



3o6 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

cation of a blackguard phrase, which we are sorry to see applied 
to any man of his zeal in this cause. — ' Capital Reporter.' " 

This is followed with due credit to Mr. Fulton by both our 
home papers. He did well in a large and talented convention 
representing sixteen counties. 

On my journey to this convention I lost, through death, a 
$150 horse, and I am now patiently waiting for a dividend on the 
investment. 

Before I close, I desire to urge the entire people of the 
Northwest to unite and push to completion the Hennepin Canal, 
which, through cheapening transportation, must benefit every 
portion of the West, yes, and of the East. 

" ' J. M. Eldridge. 
" ' Davenport, February 2, 1884.' " 

I desire, in connection with Mr. Eldridge's report, to say that 
the naming of the railroad was in order. Sailor I moved to call 
it the Davenport & Pacific; the opposition voted it down; I then 
proposed the Davenport & Missouri ; this was voted down ; then 
I proposed to call it the Davenport & Council BlulTs; voted 
down; then I proposed the Mississippi & Missouri; the opposition 
agreed to this name for Iowa's first railroad. 

It soon became evident that the construction of the Mississippi 
& Missouri Railroad was of great benefit to all within its reach 
and beyond, as it brought the Eastern and the Southern markets 
much nearer to the business and the farms of the people of Iowa. 

There was a vast district of land located between Davenport, 
la., and St. Paul in Minnesota, that lacked market facilities, and 
which could be reached by a railroad at a reasonable cost. 

As a sailor and a frontier pioneer, I considered it my duty to 
bring the markets of the world within the reach of this fertile 
land. On the 7th of April, 1867, I alone and on foot, at a quick 
pace, traversed the river's windings, east from the foot of Perry 
Street, in Davenport, la., until I struck a flowing rivulet within 
a wide ravine running northward, a few rods west of the Jersey 
Plank Road in East Davenport. I followed this ravine north- 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 3o7 

ward, and west of the Orphans' Home into the valley of Goose 
Creek, east of Pine Hill Cemetery; thence northward to where 
now stands the flourishing village of Eldridge; when a fast-reced- 
ing Sim told me to retreat for night quarters at my home in 
Davenport, greatly elated and my spirits at a premium through 
the success of the first day's work ever performed on the Daven- 
port & St. Paul Railroad, now known as the Chicago, Milwau- 
kee & St. Paul Railroad. 

On the morrow I called on Mr. L. F. Parker, a gentleman that 
felt an interest in all public enterprises, and told him that I had 
made an examination and found what I considered a feasible and 
cheap outlet for a railroad toward the North, and requested him 
to journey with me over a portion of my proposed line to investi- 
gate; he consented and I procured a team, and we examined an 
additional twenty miles, our driver using the roads whilst we 
walked the line over sloughs, climbing fences and wading creeks. 
We found all this distance to be desirable for a railroad; this was 
the second day's work that produced a railroad for Iowa. I on 
the following day drew up a stock subscription list, headed it 
with fifty shares of stock, making five thousand dollars, an 
awfully large sum of money for a Sailor I; then went on the 
streets, intercepted merchants, visited stores and factories, and in. 
a few days ran it up to fifty-four thousand dollars, a very small 
sum to speak of in railroad-building, yet it was a start, and Mr. 
Miller of the firm of Beiderbecke & Miller went with me into the 
first ward of the city, to endeavor to increase the stock list, but 
procuring railroad stock in the large and populous first ward of 
Davenport was an up-grade exertion, for after a thorough, 
urgent, and close canvass of the ward, the stock lists now bear 
witness that the whole ward's number of shares of stock to create 
a railroad fell five shares short of the number subscribed and 
paid for by the small shareholder, Sailor I, and my unpaid-for 
labor was of double the value of my stock. 

Then again, by individual exertion, in a few weeks I secured 
over eighty thousand dollars; after this showing a large number 
of citizens entered onto the work, and in their zeal and activity 



3o8 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

outstripped Sailor I, and to keep up in the procession I had to 
increase my subscription to sixty-two hundred dollars or sixty- 
two shares of stock, which I now retain, but it is of less value 
thaw the paper that exhibits the words, figures, and the president's 
signature. The sheriff, after my long and hard work, sold the 
road to the bondholders, and the stock was rendered worthless. 

The charter for the Davenport & St. Paul Railroad Company 
was not placed on record until February 5, 1869, after interior 
counties took an interest in the undertaking and increased 
the stock list, to give value to a charter when placed on 
record. 

This road had many difficulties to contend with, most all grow- 
ing out of a lack of funds to shovel earth with and the greed of 
citizens for exorbitant pay for damages and right of way. The 
road was run from a northern connecting railroad to the south 
side of Pine Hill Cemetery, where it slumbered some months; 
then it was branched ofif on a temporary line to the north beach 
of Duck Creek, near two miles from Davenport City, and opened 
up to commerce, and the shippers had to pay more to haul their 
goods over those two miles, especially when the roads were wet 
and slushy, than they paid to the railroad for twenty miles, and 
the passengers dreaded those two miles more than forty on the 
road. This was considered a sad state of affairs, and hundreds 
of persons, on the line of the road, as well as in the cities, felt sad 
and complained of the situation, but were told that to bring the 
railroad in from Pine Hill to the proposed river station, on ac- 
count of the nature of the ground, and the expensive but 
unknown right of way and damages, made the undertaking im- 
possible. I told the people through the press, and the board of 
trade in session, that a careful estimate of the cost should be 
made by surveys, and an estimate of the right of way; upon this 
recommendation Mr. Jacob M. Eldridge and self were appointed 
by the board of trade, at a citizens' meeting on the loth of Decem- 
ber, 1873, to make surveys, measurements of cuts and fills, and 
river-water fill, with riprap; the bridging, piling, culverts, and the 
demands for damages for the right of way. Mr. Eldridge was 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 309 

called off to other business, and as it was but one man's task, 
Sailor I employed men and performed the duty at my own cost, 
and on January 2, 1874, reported the cost of each class of work 
and section of the line, which report was that day published in the 
Davenport City journals; one of those journals containing my 
report is now before me. I proposed to perform the work and 
extend the line to its proposed destination at Warren Street, 
Davenport, at my estimated cost; this estimate of the cost of 
construction and right of way was sent to the bondholders by 
Receiver Mr. John E. Henry, and they immediately proposed to 
complete the road into the city if the people of the city would 
give them the right of way; this right of way was a stumbling 
block that caused division and contention even to the courts; 
some to curtail expenses and secure the road proposed to cross 
or use a portion of East Front Street; Sailor I, although poor and 
hard pushed for funds, considered general prosperity to be my 
best outlet from adversity. I as an advocate of railroads, and 
using the streets if necessary to secure them, notwithstanding 
I had a larger property interest on that street than any other in- 
dividual, I was willing to risk the sacrifice, and contended that 
if we had to surrender every street in the city to various rail- 
roads, that then we would possess a city of great value; that we 
would have a Venice, with canals of iron and gondola cars pro- 
pelled by steam and electricity. 

The facts were that a majority of the City Council claimed that 
railroads were of small value, an unnecessary luxury, and many of 
just that class of men pushed themselves into office, especially 
in Western towns and cities. Many very poor samples of hu- 
manity, by the use of the political toboggan, slide into office 
through the force of circumstances, some of whom are not even 
on the tax books, to disburse hundreds of thousands of dollars — 
men that the very journals and voters that champion them never 
did and never will place twenty dollars in their hands to invest 
or manage for them, but such men by some are considered fitted 
to govern. When the bondholders, engineers, and expert ac- 
countants completed their work and estimates of this work, 



3IO A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

they found the report of the cost presented by Sailor I to be 
strictly correct. 

I paid all laboring men then and previously $1.75 per day, 
which was, according to their report, $1.50 per day more than the 
wages that they had received for twelve hours' work in Ireland 
and Germany, or just as much for one day's work in America as 
they received for seven days' work in their European homes. I 
paid stone masons then and previously $3 per day, and those 
mechanics informed me that this was $2.25 more per day than 
they had received for twelve hours' like work in Europe; but we 
did not waste our lives by working on slothful pauper time of 
eight hours per day, but eleven hours, and payments made every 
Monday, and almost every workman I employed procured a good 
home, and many became rich men whom I could here name. 

Good reader, you will observe that the above-mentioned wages 
are greatly in excess of my once pay of $16 per month, and 
twelve up to twenty-four hours' work in storm and tempests, 
sometimes payable at the end of three or four months. 

With this $16 per month I got a good start to give work and 
food to many hundreds. 

My exhibit here clearly shows that the wages of the foreigner 
are increased more than thrice in America, yet observation and 
the unbiased journals of the day clearly prove them to be the dis- 
affected class; this was self-evident in the horrors of the Pitts- 
burg strike, the destruction of the property of the industrious 
and worthy, and the many murders that followed. The same 
class, the destructive and murderous crew that a Debs and a 
Sovereign sneakingly and traitorously hissed on from their am- 
bush to despoil and murder their superiors whom they envied; it 
is this class of bad, designing men, traitors to the good of the 
country that they owe allegiance to. They injured Chicago and 
the whole State of Illinois by their murders, and wrecking prop- 
erty and by disorganizing business deprived hundreds of their 
daily bread; but what cares a Debs or a Sovereign and their walk- 
ing gentlemen who live and fatten on the distress of others, and 
the Chicago Haymarket bomb-throwing murderers were of the 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 311 

same undesirable class — a class to be greatly feared. Those 
bomb-throwers, like other thousands of foreigners in America, 
are unfitted to live under a republican form of government, a 
form that even the educated, enlightened, and well-meaning 
Europeans do not, cannot, appreciate and understand. This is 
self-evident in every quarter and at all times. 

American banks and individuals to aid and support their Gov- 
ernment and country gather up their gold and send it to Grover 
Cleveland, a President elected by the foreign voters. The next 
day foreign Jews and other foreigners to make a fraction of a 
cent, and to help their home and country, draw it from out of the 
Washington Treasury, and dispatch it to their European homes 
of sympathy. 

On the 9th of August, 1894, at a period when the tyrant Strike 
was in power, and was wielding his blighting and destructive 
scepter to cripple and destroy all enterprise, the Davenport 
" Tribune " published as here follows, which I must place on my 
record of a life's voyage : 

" A DAVENPORTER COMPLIMENTED. 



" The Strikes of i8y^, '5j, 'p4 — Investigating Committees — Huge 
Report of 1883 — Honors Easy with A. C. Fnlton — His Old 
' Gazette ' Letters. 

" With the memory so fresh of the late Pullman sympathetic 
strikes, with the horrors of human life lost, immense destruction 
of property, and disastrous effects on business and commerce, 
many seem to forget that we have ever before suffered from 
strikes anything so terrible, and probably equally unjustifiable in 
their origin. The Tribune recently awakened the memory of 
some of its older readers to the strikes of 1875, which far sur- 
passed those of this year in the loss of life, — over one hundred 
persons in a single night, — and immeasurably greater destruction 
of property. In 1883 there were strikes of coal miners, railroad 
employees, telegraph operators, etc., more disturbing to great 
business interests than those of to-day. They were so serious 



312 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

and widespread as to call the attention of Congress, and resulted 
in the appointment of a Senate committee to investigate the 
causes and, if possible, to recommend such legislation as might 
prevent the recurrence of such calamities. This committee was 
composed of nine Senators, representing as many States, but Iowa 
was not one of them. In the same way, at the practical close of 
the strikes of 1894, has the attention of Congress been given to 
these disturbances, and the President authorized to appoint, 
which has been done, a committee to thoroughly investigate the 
strikes, the causes of them, the accompaniments of violence, etc., 
and finally to make its recommendations or suggestions for legis- 
lative action, to provide for such security in the future as may be 
obtained, by arbitration or otherwise. 

" The Senate Committee of 1883 called before it Jay Gould, 
railroad president; Powderly, the head of the K. of L.; and lesser 
lights in labor organizations, with a multitude of others, and re- 
ceived hundreds of communications by mail from both the in- 
vited and uninvited. In 1885 the committee published, and it was 
one of the most elaborate and exhausting reports ever made to 
the United States Senate. It was in five large volumes contain- 
ing altogether over five thousand pages. The report comprised 
a full discussion of the labor and capital question then, just as it 
is now, attracting so much attention, with many facts bearing on 
the subject. The present committee would do well to examine 
this report, with its facts and figures, before proceeding to collate 
their own. It can obtain both information and useful sugges- 
tions for their own work. 

" But this voluminous report gave singular credit or paid a 
high compliment to a citizen of Davenport, Mr. A. C. Fulton. 
August I, 1883, in the midst of the strike excitement, the old 
' Gazette,' a paper probably unknown to any member of the com- 
mittee, opened a ' parliament ' in its columns, where every citi- 
zen who had anything to write on the strikes, or labor and capi- 
tal questions in connection, should be free to express his opinions, 
and the communications in response were numerous, and some 
of them peppery. At that time Mr. Fulton was confined to bed 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 313 

from the effects of an old wound, and his physician was canvass- 
ing the necessity of amputating a hmb, and even solicitous about 
saving his patient's life. Mr. Fulton, however, was so interested 
in the parliament discussions, that he determined to take a hand 
in it. In his diversified and really remarkable life, he had worked 
for $16 a month and cut wood at fifty cents a cord, and, to use his 
own expression, ' had made money out of it,' so he probably 
thought he could write from his own hard experience with some 
intelligence on the labor and capital question, although short on 
the capital end. At all events, lying on his back, he wrote two 
letters for the ' Gazette,' covering this question. Here comes in 
the singular fact that, in all the huge volumes of the Senate Com- 
mittee report, these two letters were the only ones extracted from 
newspapers and given in full, from among the thousands of let- 
ters and articles that were published by the press on the capital 
and labor ques'tion. They can be found in Vol. 2, pages 399, 
400-1-2. It is strange and complimentary to Mr. Fulton that his 
letters should thus have been selected from all others, written by 
a very sick man, and published in a little Iowa paper, compara- 
tively obscure from its influence, and location in a small city so 
far away from the nation's capital. Yet they are plain, practical 
articles, written from a man's own experience in part, and with 
no rhetorical flourish, but the gist, the boiled-down substance, 
of what a more fluent writer might have occupied columns in 
saying with less effect. They were, perhaps, precisely what the 
committee wanted as materially assisting their work in solving 
the capital and labor problem. 

" In giving these facts relating to Mr. Fulton's receiving a dis- 
tinguished honor in its way, we only give significance at this late 
day to what has not been published before, yet is well to be known 
as a tribute to a citizen of Davenport who yet lives with us." 

As a portion of a life's voyage I have to here record the two 
letters of Sailor I to the Davenport " Gazette," and which the 
Senate Committee of Nine published in their report to Congress 
in 1885. 



314 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

" THE COMMON SENSE OF THE MATTER. 

'' Davenport, August 4, 1883. 
"Editor of the ' Gazette': 

*' If cutting cord-wood for a living at fifty cents per cord, and 
working in the field thirteen hours at fifty cents per day, and sav- 
ing a portion of the pay, and having been threatened and snubbed 
because I refused to join in a strike constitutes a laborer, then I 
am entitled to enter the ' Gazette's ' Parliament. 

" The experience of centuries prove that the quantity on hand 
and the demand, whether of wheat or labor, controls the price. 
A corner in wheat or a strike in labor may create an unhealthy 
and temporary rise, to be followed by a corresponding or greater 
depression. But, independent of a scarcity or a demand for la- 
bor, there is a humanity and right that should have an influence 
on capital and the employer in directing their sympathy and influ- 
ence in behalf of the more needy and dependent of the working 
classes. There are a numerous class who merit the influence and 
sympathy of their employers, the people, and the press, far more 
than do the Chicago bricklayers who received $3 and $3.50 per 
day, and demanded $4 and $4.50 per day or strike, or the wire- 
ticklers who, according to the press, received from $45 to $85 
per month, and demanded that it should be nearly doubled. 

" I refer to the laborer who receives only from $1 up to $1.50 
per day, and the men and boys in the various mills and factories, 
many of whom work at piece work and who have to work from 
early morn until night at race-horse speed, never ceasing, to earn 
60 cents to $1 per day. I also refer to the widowed mother, and 
the sewing girl of the attic and the garret, who ekes out a miser- 
able existence making drawers, undergarments and overalls, at 
6 to 12 cents per pair, and pantaloons at 30 to 80 cents per pair. 

" I solicit the press, as soon as it rights the wrongs of the 
* Brotherhood,' to extend its columns and sympathy to the neg- 
lected, weak, and oppressed Sisterhood. No doubt the telegraph 
companies could and should have increased the pay of their 
forces, and perhaps a small advance at an early day would have 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 315 

prevented the present embargo. But to establish an eight-hour 
system would be of more injury than benefit to the people as a 
nation. Life is too short to use but one-third of our working 
years in building up the world and keeping it in repair. Mills, 
factories, and farms cannot be run on eight hours out of the 
twenty-four, nor could they maintain a shift of hands; it might 
please the wire-ticklers, but it would be baneful to the general 
good. 

"A combination of proprietors to raise the price of commodities 
or provisions beyond their real value is an act of injustice to the 
people, and cannot come within that good rule of doing unto 
others as you would desire others to do unto you. 

" Capital and labor to succeed must act in harmony. Their 
interests are mutual. When I speak of capital I do not mean the 
mere dollars and cents that an individual or company may pos- 
sess, but also the credit that they possess, which is more potent 
than the dollars and cents, and this credit is of value to labor, as 
it extends business and creates a demand for labor. 

" Many persons and journals are crying, ' give us cheap goods, 
cheap commodities,' but those same parties strenuously object 
to the people and authorities putting all their force to work to 
produce those cheap goods. They declare that the convicts 
throughout the Union must not labor but must be supported in 
idleness by a working people, because the convicts produce cheap 
goods. Right and justice say, ' Feed the convicts well and put 
them to work to the best advantage to produce cheap goods; then 
they will be useful to the State, enjoy good health, and return to 
liberty with a good trade.' 

" If the sole object of a portion of the press and the numerous 
societies is to raise wages, all that is necessary to do, gentlemen, 
is to amend the Chinese bill so as to include all European immi- 
grants, and as the various orders of workmen prohibit teaching 
apprentices, wages will go up to the upper notch, as Dennis Kear- 
ney asserts they have on the Pacific slope. This act would be far 
less atrocious than massacring those who refused to enter the 
Pittsburg strike. 



$i6 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

" To demand an increase of pay, or exorbitant pay, is right and 
proper; to abandon work at pleasure is also proper. But the des- 
pot ' strike * is not content with enjoying those rights and privi- 
leges. No, the tyrant must constitute itself a Legislature to en- 
act laws for others and create a Court and appoint a head- 
center to act as Judge, Jury, and Clerk of the Court to decree 
who shall teach apprentices and who shall not, and who shall 
labor and who shall not. And should the unhallowed decrees of 
this court be disobeyed, the club, the boot heel, the shot-gun, and 
revolver are freely used to pierce, to bruise, and slay the body of 
him who was created in the image of the living God. And this 
scourging and death because the poor victim dared attempt to 
earn bread for his wife and little ones. A. C. F." 

Editor Russell said: 

" In writing from his sick room, to which he has been confined 
for five weeks past, the contribution for the * Gazette's ' Labor 
Parliament, printed this morning from his pen, Mr. A. C. Fulton 
added a private note to the editor to say : ' As I want something 
to rest my mind from thoughts of my sickness and pain, I write 
for the old " Gazette." Goodness ! what I have learned in forty- 
one years from the " Gazette." Without it there would be many 
a blank in memory and life.' Doubtless, and of course. But, 
the ' Gazette ' has also been a debtor to Mr. Fulton. Many, in- 
deed, have been the else overlooked fact, or forgotten history, to 
which that indefatigable friend of Davenport has aided editors 
and reporters. Blessings from the press upon the heads of such 
laborers." 

Second letter (I have here in New York the originals as used 
by the committee) : 

" CAPITAL AS A HELPER TO LABOR. 

" * Editor of the " Gazette ": I appear in the " Gazette " Parlia- 
ment to take up the labor and capital question where I left it in 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 3^7 

my article published in your issue of the 5th, which article on 
account of my modesty I issued over the initials A. F. I will 
endeavor to speak plain and give facts. 

" ' There is a very perceptible and growing disposition on the 
part of the socialists, strikers, and no small portion of the press 
to envy, rail, and rant against moneyed men and moneyed insti- 
tutions. At the same time there is not one of those persons that 
desires to emigrate to a country, or locate in a city or village, 
where all are as poor or poorer than themselves. They possess 
an instinct that tells them that to procure a living or wealth they 
must locate where wealth abounds. They who create or accumu- 
late wealth are the garners of Egypt from which we draw in 
time of need. They can and do supply the wants of the desti- 
tute, and have built up the most valuable and important institu- 
tions of our country. If space permitted I could name hun- 
dreds of wealthy philanthropists. I will mention the wealthy 
banker, Mr. Peabody, who bestowed millions on useful and last- 
ing institutions in both England and America. I will also men- 
tion Stephen Girard, who was in his day the most wealthy man in 
the Union. He for years sheltered, clothed, and fed hundreds 
of the poor and needy, while also making provision for and had 
erected the most gigantic and grand combination of college and 
resident buildings that this Union can boast of, wherein thou- 
sands of youths have been clothed, fed, and educated, and an 
ample income provided to keep up this unequaled institution to 
the end of time. Let us for a moment come to our own city and 
look at the Griswold College and grounds, procured from the 
garners of Eastern millionaires. Very soon, too, thirty thou- 
sand dollars more will arrive toward establishing a college for 
young ladies in Davenport. 

" * I have conversed with many strikers, and the prevailing 
opinion seems to be that to succeed in a strike will immediately 
put a surplus in their pockets. After succeeding, they will find 
that they who do not save a few dimes per week out of fair 
wages will not save a few out of the larger sum. Mechanics, 
artisans, and laborers must learn that it is not the $9 or the $30 



3i8 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

per week that we receive and spend that counts in sickness or old 
age, but the $i that we save. 

" * As evidence I will name a few instances in Davenport. I 
could name many of the dollar-saving people. Some years ago 
Mr. Keyser, a Swede, a rough carpenter with a family, came to 
Davenport with $4 on hand. He worked for a small capitalist 
with a large credit, who built for himself to rent or sell. Mr. 
Keyser at first received $1.75 per day, which was in time in- 
creased. His employer assisted him in purchasing a home; he 
saved, and built several small houses, and within eleven years 
sold out and purchased a large and well-stocked farm in Kansas 
for $8000 cash. During this same period a Prussian laborer, 
John Litze, arrived with his family of five and a few dollars. He 
went to work for the same capitalist, and is now working on his 
twenty-eighth year with his first employer, who purchased for 
him the half block on Ripley and Thirteenth streets, where he 
has two fine dwellings, and one of Davenport's best physicians 
is his tenant. He has raised his family and is clear of debt, and 
$10,000 will not purchase John Litze's possessions. The ques- 
tion is, did those workingmen build up the capitalist, or did the 
capitalist build up the workingmen to independence? Or were 
the benefits mutual? In no other country on the globe could 
those men have settled and reached their present independent 
position. 

" ' Discontented workmen and the journals that encourage 
their discontent cry " bloated merchant," " mammoth factory," 
etc. They do not examine the small beginning, the economy 
and years of toil that produced those mammoth factories. Envi- 
ous mortals, go with me to the vast locomotive works of Bald- 
win in Philadelphia, look back through the years of the past to 
their conception, and you will see a pale-faced boy of seventeen 
learning to turn iron; then the same boy, as the inventor of a 
valuable and now extensively used engraving instrument; then 
comes in its order acres of costly workshops, with a network of 
machinery, the motion of which causes your head to swim, and 
the product of which is this day benefiting the inhabitants of every 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 3^9 

quarter of the civilized world. Hark! the bell taps the hour to 
cease work. Count, if you can, the hundreds of workmen that 
depart from this vast hive of industry! Messieurs journals and 
discontented strikers and socialists, do you envy the pale-faced 
boy, and claim a portion of his extensive possessions? 

" ' There can be a wrong in trivial acts, even in cutting a tele- 
graph wire that is the property of another. Suppose a man in 
early spring places a grain of corn within the earth ; it springs up, 
he hoes and waters the growing stock, and looks with pleasure 
toward early autumn, when he shall feast upon the ear it bears; 
but when autumn comes, a man slips in and steals the ear of 
corn and eats it. Would you not consider him a very mean man 
thus to steal the product of another's industry? 

" ' A. C. Fulton. 

" * Davenport, la., August ii, 1883.' " 

Sailor I, with great reluctance, have to say that I am the 
small capitalist who purchased for Mr. Keyser valuable property 
on East Second Street, Davenport, and gave him his own time 
to pay for it in work; and in the mean time supported his family; 
and purchased for Mr. Litze a valuable half block, near the city's 
center, from Mr. Charles Watkins of Denver, and gave Mr. Litze 
many years to pay for it, and gave him many hundreds of dol- 
lars to live on, and also to give one of his sons a college education 
for the ministry, a station that he now with credit fills. 

I aided not those alone, but many others to secure homes. 
Capital may possess qualities that its ignorant enemies have not 
the capacity to fathom. 

I, in 1867, with others, chiefly of Rock Island, 111., whilst I was 
yet engaged on the Iowa railroad improvements, I joined the 
work of creating the Peoria & Rock Island Railroad, and in ad- 
dition to my work in raising stock, I took five shares of the stock, 
$500, which the sherifif also took possession of, and I have my 
worthless evidence of being a stockholder to the extent of my 
ability in that railroad now before me; but the railroad is in opera- 
tion and is of great value to the State and people of Illinois, and 



320 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

gives employment with large wages to a great many persons. 
Most all of the Davenport subscribers to this Peoria railroad 
stock repudiated their contracts to pay, Sailor I never; I now 
have before me the ocular proof of payment in full, in the shape 
of a worthless stock certificate. 

In 1881 I resolved to enter into the undertaking of creating the 
fifth railroad for Iowa and Davenport, and, if possible, to erect 
the second bridge over the Mississippi, and continue the iron 
road on to Pittsburg, Pa. 

Oh, goodness! how long and hard did I work before a single 
man enlisted in the undertaking, and the Davenport Board of 
Trade of which I was a member, and before which I brought up 
the momentous undertaking, the board hastily vetoed the Pitts- 
burg end of the line, a very injudicious act, as it was an injury to 
the Western section of the gigantic enterprise, and the board of 
trade at two of its sessions opposed the whole undertaking as a 
folly when looking at the then prospects, and the extent of rail- 
road territory and the funds in sight or prospect. The board of 
trade in session stigmatized the undertaking as Fulton's project, 
as a Davenport journal of 188 1, now before me, in reporting the 
proceedings of the board exhibits. This opposition, at the first 
session of the board on the subject, was unanimous with the sin- 
gle exception of Mr. Jacob M. Eldridge, its ex-president, a fron- 
tier nobleman of enterprise who erected buildings, opened vast 
farms, gave homes and bread to many, and was of more value to 
the world than forty big-feeling, easy-going, slipshod persons of 
the city, who were ever on the watch for something to turn up 
and to roll into their pockets. Finally the opposition to what 
they called " Fulton's folly " as a blufif appointed Sailor I as a 
committee of one to draft the railroad's articles of incorporation. 

The duty was immediately entered on; I selected incorporators 
for the Davenport, Iowa & Dakota Railroad ; drew up an elastic 
charter, and at my own cost, under the Iowa laws, recorded it at 
the State capital, and also in the county of Scott, on April 26, 
1882, in book "C" of Corporations, at page 201. Under the 
original proposition to run the line East to meet the Pennsylvania 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 321 

Railroad at Pittsburg, a second bridge across the Mississippi 
was necessary. In 1881 I procured instruments, sounding rods, 
chartered a boat and crew, and took soundings for a bridge at 
a large cost to my individual self, in biting zero weather; a bridge 
is now under construction at that point; I opened subscription 
lists for stock to the D. I. & D. Railroad. At this point many 
came forward with an energy and perseverance that caused me 
to be ashamed of my early feeble exertions. The first or Daven- 
port section was built and is now operating into the city of 
Davenport. 

To construct this railroad, home capital had to be depended 
on, and in addition to the small sums put into stock, Scott County 
voted a tax to aid the road, of which tax Sailor I, for self and 
for others who had no funds beyond a living, paid $780, as the 
county collector's receipts now before me assert. 

The day that this tax money was exhausted, and the energetic 
and enterprising contractors. Williams & Flynn, who sunk their 
all, their hard-earned all, came to a dead standstill for the want 
of funds to pay for provisions, and the further right of way to 
work on, before they could proceed one single rod with their 
work, on ground that they had been forbidden to enter on until 
some $1800 was paid. To stop work one single half day would 
seal the fate of the road, as the Iron Mills agent and expert were 
that very hour on their way to inspect the quality and progress 
of the work and the financial situation of the company before 
they could enter into a contract to furnish some hundreds of 
miles of iron on the credit of the road; it was a critical moment 
for Iowa and the D. I. & D. Railroad. 

Immediately on receiving information of the situation, I hastily 
called on a majority of the directors and a number of interested 
citizens, and strongly urged them to save the sinking ship; the 
reply v/as quick and positive: not one dollar more. I then has- 
ened to the First National Bank of Davenport, and stated the 
urgent situation, and requested a loan of $2000 on mv note for 
ninety days. The bank's kind cashier, Mr. James Thompson, 
and its good officers after a few minutes' consultation took my 



32 2 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

note and gave me the $2000, and within thirty minutes of the time 
that I entered the bank, I had a fleet team and a trusty agent 
steering for the embargo ground with the rehef funds. This 
$2000 I received back, less the interest. 

To continue the work and to secure iron for the first division, 
I proposed to be one of twenty to furnish $100,000, each man to 
furnish $5000. The twenty men came forward, and the money 
was furnished to the road in short order; my $5000 did not require 
the time necessary to earn it, for I borrowed it at big interest; but 
alas! in the round-up of this $5000 and its interest constantly 
paid up; not a very large sum for a Vanderbilt or a John Jacob 
Astor, who inherited their funds, and never worked at $16 per 
month, to be called upon a tempestuous night to go aloft; it would 
to them, and perhaps to the good reader be a mere bagatelle, and 
you or the Astors might not complain, or even enter the transac- 
tion on your diary. Tlie fact is that sly bucket-shop bankers 
crawled out of their dark, slimy holes, and with masked tongues 
entered my little office, No. 314 Perry Street, at early morning, to 
despoil me of over $300 of the sum, and smiled at their good luck 
in securing the funds, and their escape from the lash that they 
well knew that they merited, and this sly act, after they, with 
crocodile tears in their eyes, had begged me not to place any of 
the stock on the New York market, and I had complied with their 
request. Such is fate; some men sink under the weight of toil 
and honesty, whilst others slide into notice and wealth through 
the strategy of words, or phoenix-like rise from the ashes of 
broken promises to pay. 

My gratuitous work on this railroad embraced purchasing 
timber, employing men to make cords of stakes in front of No. 
314 Perry Street, Davenport, la., which I teamed out on the first 
fifty miles of the preliminary survey at my own cost. 

This, the Davenport, Iowa & Dakota Railroad, was hustled 
over to the possession of men of wealth by men of the same class, 
to the great wrong and injury of hard-working laborers and con- 
tractors. Upon the consummation of this great wrong, the 
Davenport ** Daily Tribune " of December 4, 1890, a leading 



r PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 3^3 

journal which is now before me, published to the world as follows, 
and thousands cried " shame " on that act of great wrong: 



" THE D. I. & D. TRANSFERRED. 



" Williams & Flynn's Creditors Cut Off — One Dissenting Vote — A 

Crying Shame, 

" Yesterday afternoon the directors of the D. I. & D. 
Railroad held a meeting for the purpose of transferring 
the road to the B. C. R. & N. President C. J. Ives 
of the B. C. R. «& N. was present. The transfer was 
made but not by the unanimous action of the directory, 
A. C. Fulton alone voting against it. This deal cuts of¥ 
all the creditors of Williams &* Flynn, and they are numerous 
and many of them needy. Instead of transferring to the B. C. R. 
& N. the entire line for which the right of way has been secured 
and some of the grading done beyond the part now built, A. C. 
Fulton moved to quit-claim it to Williams & Flynn, but he was 
voted down. Mr. Ives made a few remarks on the subject and 
said that his company thought it was getting all and that he did 
not think they would agree to any such proposition. Mr. Fulton 
said that individually he would not be guilty of perpetrating such 
a great wrong and that he would never consent to join with others 
in doing so. The question was put and carried, however, and 
now the D. I. & D. is no more. The amount paid by the B. C. 
R. & N. is just about one-half what the road cost our Davenport 
capitalists, and now what have they? Davenport is now cut off 
forever from having a northwest road into Dakota — the one thing 
which our citizens desired above all others and the only con- 
sideration which induced them to vote the tax. The ' Tribune ' 
is in favor of anything that will benefit Davenport; but up to date 
we are unable to see just how this deal will be of such great bene- 
fit. It is a well-known fact that the B. C. R. & N. is part of the 
Rock Island system, and it has been whispered pretty freely that 
the Rock Island was back of this deal and urging it forward. It 



324 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

is a shame and disgrace that poor men who worked hard on the 
construction of the D. I. & D. are obHged to lose their hard- 
earned wages, the wealthy alone being benefited thereby. Let 
one of these men ask a favor of the road and they will be sneered 
at. It is time that this voting of a tax to build railroads be 
stopped. If a company is unable to build a road it should never 
begin the task." 

I was a small stockholder in five steam railroads and in one 
horse railroad, and was a director in three of them, originated 
and examined the proposed location of all of them before they 
possessed a name, yet I never received one dollar for many years 
of services, or a single dollar as dividend; but sheriffs and lawyers 
and others did; nor did I ever receive par for a single share of 
stock ever sold by me, and the bulk that I ever owned is now be- 
fore me, but worthless. Jay Gould would have called this build- 
ing railroads under adverse circumstances. 

I here place on my record the first intimation of the creation of 
the new crescent bridge of the Mississippi River as published in 
the Davenport " Gazette," in December, 1881. 

" A communication appears in the * Gazette * this morning from 
Mr. A. C. Fulton which will awaken a new interest in Daven- 
port's future. It is a proposed railroad, and the name suggested 
is the Davenport, Sioux City & Pittsburg line. Mr. Fulton has 
given the subject no little attention, having spent money and 
time in making surveys for a proposed bridge between this city 
and Rock Island nearly a mile below the present government 
bridge. More railroads will help materially in developing this 
section of the State, and they are coming. 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 325 

A NEW RAILROAD THE DAVENPORT, SIOUX CITY & PITTSBURG 

LINE. 



" Surveys for a Nezv Bridge Between Rock Island and This Place — 
A Project Worth Working For. 

'^ ' Editor of the "Gazette": 

" ' Our city and county are not fully developed, and to develop 
them we must have more railroads. 

** ' Every twenty-five miles in width of territory will support 
a line of railroad and pay a fair dividend if water is kept out of the 
composition of its stock. In canvassing the matter we must aim 
at an Eastern connection. I will give my individual idea, and, 
no doubt, someone can improve on it. My idea would be to work 
up a line between Davenport and Pittsburg, and on west- 
ward, through Tipton and Marion to Sioux City. We must 
traverse territory unoccupied by railroads, except to cross and 
tap themi where it will pay. 

" ' To accommodate this Davenport, Sioux City & Pittsburg 
line it will be advisable to erect a bridge across the Mississippi 
at the western end of the city. To ascertain the practicability 
of bridging at this point I proceeded in September last to plat the 
several islands and take their bearings and make soundings 
within the river, until high water stopped my operations. I this 
day procured proper sounding rods, chartered a boat and crew, 
and with an instrument kindly furnished me by Surveyor Murray, 
I again entered on the work by driving an abutment stake on the 
southern verge of Hall's island, over which we erected a staff 
and nailed the American flag at its peak, where it now waves. 
From this stake we took a bearing south 19° west to the Rock 
Island shore, where we also planted a stake; having reconnoitered 
the territory eastward as far as Milan, in October, we proceeded 
to take soundings of the river, which we found far more favor- 
able than we had anticipated. Basing our measurement at low 
water, we found — with the exception of the channel, which is 



326 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

located near the Rock Island shore and is some 250 feet in width, 
with 10 feet of water — that the remainder of the distance has a 
depth varying from 5 up to 7 feet; add to this 7.35, the stage of 
the water this evening, and it will give you the total depth of the 
river at the proposed bridge location this day. We found rock 
bottom to prevail a greater portion of the distance. Our sound- 
ing implements were not of a capacity to reach the rock within 
the channels. 

** * Davenport and Iowa must keep pace with other cities and 
States by both water and railroad facilities for exports and im- 
ports, and I am well satisfied that the Hennepin Canal and the 
Davenport, Sioux City & Pittsburg Railroad will create a grand 
revolution, benefiting the entire Northwest. Whilst the general 
Government will construct the former, the people of the cities, 
villages, towns, and the farming community can and should con- 
struct the latter, which will add fully twenty-five per cent, to the 
value of their possessions, as well as a large sum through the 
facilities of communication and cheap transportation. 

" ' A. C. Fulton. 
" ' Davenport, December i, 1881.* " 

The historical Davenport *' Democrat-Gazette " of January 29, 
1889, placed on its valuable pages for future generations the 
origin of the first and the last of the great bridges of the mighty 
Mississippi River, The Father of Waters. 

I must here place on my record the " Democrat-Gazette's " 
report. 

" A SCRAP OF HISTORY — BRIDGING THE MISSISSIPPI AT DAVEN- 
PORT. 

" The First and Last Survey and Reports for Railroad Bridge 
Across the Mississippi at This Point — When They Were 
Made. 

" Account of the first survey and report for a railroad bridge 
across the Mississippi at Davenport made by our townsman, Mr. 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 3^7 

A. C. Fulton, and published for the first time in the Philadelphia 
* Sun ' in 1845, will prove interesting reading, even at this late 
day. The survey was made by Mr. Fulton with a view to the 
construction of a railroad to the Pacific coast. At that date there 
was not a mile of railroad west of Chambersburg, east of the 
mountains in Pennsylvania. 

" The report says, ' There are several points where the Mississ- 
ippi River can be easily bridged, the most feasible of which is at 
the upper rapids, above the city of Davenport, where the river 
is narrower than it is at any other point between its mouth and 
the Falls of St. Anthony, with high rock banks and rock bottom; 
the channel of deep water varying from 150 to 300 feet in width, 
the balance of the distance across at low water varying from 3 
to 5 feet ; no low or inundated lands in the vicinity. To reach this 
point through Illinois in any direction by railroad will require 
less grading for the same distance than any other route in the 
Union. Two-thirds of the distance across the State is now 
almost ready to receive the rails. Nature has leveled the sur- 
face of the prairies, and it is unnecessary for me to boast of the 
unsurpassed soil and the pleasant climate.' 

" Mr. Fulton in his report then proceeds to give the route and 
the nature of the country northwest through Iowa. It must be 
remembered that at this period bridging rivers for railroads was 
in its infancy." 

At an early day I published and jotted down on my diary rail- 
road necessity and occurrences, for at that day pickaxes, shovels, 
and the money in sight could never, never, have been swayed and 
united to create Far Western railroads, without the use of type 
and ink to attract them together. Well knowing this fact, Sailor 
I set afloat, first and last during long years, many, a great many 
columns of this product of journals, many of which now lie before 
me, dinged by the lapse of time, some of which I have placed on 
this, my record, for distant coming generations. 

This active and stirring work and numerous publications by 
Sailor I, on railroads and bridges, reached Mexico, and her Con- 



328 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

gress ignored New Orleans, Boston, and New York, and in 1859 
sent a delegation of three to visit the railroad magnates of the 
inland hamlet of Davenport, to solicit her capitalists to journey to 
their country and build their mountain railroads and receive valu- 
able grants of land and money. 

The learned commissioners quartered at the old Burtis House, 
and a poorly clad, gaping crowd met them in convention at the 
Metropolitan Hall, to deliberate on their proposals, when the 
entire county of Scott did not possess sufificient funds to build one 
single mile of their mountain railroad tunnels. General Add. 
Saunders was unanimously appointed by the Assembly to imme- 
diately journey to Mexico and close the negotiations; but near 
forty years have elapsed and the lack of funds, or some other 
cause, has stayed the journey. 

My diary says two of those roads, the Rock Island & Chicago 
and the Mississippi & Missouri, have been merged into the 
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, but through and by 
an incompetent directory and self-serving officials, it has boy- 
cotted towns, villages, and individuals, making a vast number of 
its friends and patrons its enemies, and injuring its stockholders 
by depreciating their stock some thirty per cent, below its once 
rate, and its Peoria Dog in the Manger branch is at this moment 
by the use of a cable placing an embargo on the construction of 
the Mississippi's crescent bridge to increase the number that de- 
spise it for its injudicious and uncalled-for actions. 

Sailor I during a life's voyage must constantly pay attention to 
the corroborating testimony solemnly given through the journals 
of the world. 



TALK OF OTHER DAYS THE OLDEST INHABITANT TELLS OF 

THE DAYS OF THE BOB-TAIL CARS. 

'' ' At the meeting of the city council held October 4, 1865, 
thirty years ago last Friday,' said the oldest inhabitant to a " Re- 
publican " reporter yesterday, * Mr. A. C. Fulton oflfered a peti- 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 329 

tion to grant hitn the privilege to build a horse railroad on Third 
street, and it was referred to the street committee. That was 
the first start or entering wedge of Davenport's street railways 
now numbermg miles, well equipped in rolling stock, built in the 
most substantial manner, run by electricity, and crossing the 
government bridge and the island of Rock Island, and connecting 
with the tramways of Rock Island, Moline, and Milan. 

" ' Mr. Fulton had a hard time in starting his enterprise, but a 
company was formed and chartered eventually, stock taken to 
the amount of $17,500 for the road from East Davenport to Brady 
street, while only $1100 was subscribed for the road from Brady 
west. There was jealousy between the east and west ends and a 
feeling with the latter that Mr. Fulton was working for personal 
ends, and he was charged with wanting to destroy the good road 
they had by running a railway track over it, just as the C, R. I 
,7; ^^''''°3'^ I'ad almost taken possession of Fifth Street' 
'.''The original ordinance granting the company the right to 
build a horse railroad on Third Street specified it should be com- 
menced at the west end of the line, about a block this side of the 
McManus place. In strict accord with this, the work was " com- 
menced there for a block or two, then transferred to the East 
Davenport end and the rails laid to Brady Street, where for some 
time It stopped, but cars running on the road thus completed 
The west end was then awakened and the road soon completed to 
connect with where it commenced, and finally extended beyond 
to Schutzen Park. 

'' ' To the energy and work of Mr. Fulton far more than any 
other man was due the building of the first street railway in 
Davenport, and now one can hardly realize the troubles and de- 
lays he and the company he formed and had incorporated 
encountered in this enterprise. The wonder at present is, realiz- 
ing as we do the immense benefits of our street railways to city 
and people, how we ever got along comfortably and prosper- 
ously without them; or why, when Davenport, even thirty years 
ago was putting on city airs, the proposition to build one street 
railway was regarded as an innovation on street road rights a 



33<^ A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

doubtful financial experiment, and such opposition engendered 
by local jealousies as to long delay the work. 

** ' But street railways were then merely the adjuncts of larger 
cities. There was not one in Iowa when Mr. Fulton projected our 
Davenport road. But Dubuque completed one just before ours 
was commenced. In fact, Mr. Fulton went east and secured the 
contractor of the Dubuque line as soon as it was finished, and put 
him to work on this road. So Davenport had the second street 
railroad in Iowa.' " 

As history I wish to record tnat in 1884 a Congressional Com- 
mittee was appointed to select a site for the Soldiers' Home of the 
West. The Davenport Board of Trade appointed Editor D. N. 
Richardson, Hon. S. P. Bryant, and A. C. Fulton as a committee 
to visit or address the committee and lay before it the advantages 
of Davenport and vicinity. Editor D. N. Richardson and Hon. 
S. P. Bryant stated that they had their hands full of business, and 
requested Sailor I, as chairman to address the august commis- 
sioners, which I did in the words as published in the Davenport 
" Democrat " of Sunday, September 14, 1884, and which read 
thus: 

" NATIONAL soldiers' HOME. 

" Communication of the Board of Trade Committee. 

'' ' To the Congressional Committee appointed to Select a Suit- 
able Location for the Soldiers' Home: 

" ' Sirs: The Davenport Board of Trade appointed S. P. Bryant, 
D. N. Richardson, and A. C. Fulton as committee to address or 
visit you, and lay before you the advantages of Davenport, Scott 
County, Iowa, as a suitable location for the Soldiers' Home of the 
West. 

" * The late census will inform you that of the seven States from 
which you are instructed to make your selection, Iowa stands 
first in productiveness, first in intelligence, second in health, and 
second in morality. 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 331 

"* A healthy location within a healthy State; no low or inun- 
dated lands in its vicinity, no malaria taints the atmosphere. 

The county and city contain vast ranges of blufif lands, ele- 
vated one hundred feet above the rivers and streams. 

'' * The Mississippi River borders those bluffs on the south, 
and fertile prairies spread out northward; pure water can be pro- 
cured from springs, wells, and the river. There is coal and wood 
in abundance. 

The county of Scott is famed as producing every descrip- 
tion of grain, fruits, and plants known to this latitude, and is ac- 
cessible through its rivers and railroads to the markets and the 
granaries of the world. And the city of Davenport has ever 
been the well-stocked storehouse of fertile Iowa. Here the great 
States of Illinois and Iowa are joined as one by the government 
bridge. Here the government arsenal works are growing to 
greatness, and here the sailor and the soldier can look upon the 
steamer and the sailing craft. Our churches embrace almost 
every religious sect, and their ministers, priests, and bishops are 
volunteers ever ready for good works. 

" ' We embrace a portion of a Christian State that has adopted 
prohibition, and the people possess intelligence, industry, and 
every quality of greatness. 

" ' By direction of the committee I thus address you. 
" ' Respectfully Yours, 

" ' A. C. Fulton, Chairman. 

" ' Davenport, la., September 13, 1884.' " 

As a portion of a life's voyage I have to record that a historical 
work, in connection with the World's Columbian Exposition, 
published in 1893, says that, " Previous to 1854 the city of Daven- 
port did not possess a suitable cemetery; Mr. Fulton proposed to 
a few of the citizens to unite and purchase a tract of land for ceme- 
tery purposes; the proposition was sanctioned and he was ap- 
pointed to select a site and enter into contracts, which he did; 
at this point the others declined the risk. He individually ful- 
filled his contracts, paid for seventy-two acres of land, fenced and 



332 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

laid it out with three miles of carriage drive and nine miles of 
walks, planted five hundred evergreen and other trees, and many 
costly tombs now mark the place of the departed. He still con- 
ducts Pine Hill." 

A life's voyage from a diary is a disjointed and uncon- 
nected history; in this fact rests its merit, as every page has its 
day; its rising and its setting sun; its birth, its life, its death; and 
the reader that does not possess the knowledge to fathom this fact 
and situation should be banished to the Cannibal Islands to grow 
up with the island savages to intelligence. 

Since the landing of our Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, in De- 
cember, 1620, and with William Penn at Philadelphia in 1682, to 
this date [1896] the discoveries and the perfecting of useful in- 
ventions by Americans outnumber and outstrip in utility and 
greatness all those of the balance of the whole world combined. 
Every man who is familiar with the arts, practical sciences, and 
mechanics well knows this fact. 

To possess an education and knowledge was a cardinal point 
with the early Americans; as early as 1634, under their wise laws, 
every district or township of fifty householders was required to 
erect a schoolhouse and hire a teacher, but no law was necessary, 
for much smaller communities voluntarily built their school- 
houses and employed teachers. Cambridge College was insti- 
tuted in 1643, as an upper school; not this alone, but mothers and 
fathers taught their children at their homes in the sparsely settled 
districts, and they were competent to perform the act. This was 
the foundation laid at that early day that gave America her states- 
men, inventors, army officers, and country-loving soldiers. At 
this same period that our fathers were instructing their children 
to fit them for ambassadors, governors. Presidents, and a busi- 
ness life, how stood many nations at that day who now boast of 
their ability and greatness as a people? 

Eighty-five per cent, of the German nation or people were 
serfs, possessing no minds or freedom, but subject to the orders 
of their masters, even to the duty of cutting the throats of Ameri- 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 333 

cans; and full eighty per cent, of the Italians and the English 
were but one degree or knot higher up in manhood's scale. 

Those are well-known facts to everyone who possesses a knowl- 
edge of ancient and modern history. 

America invented and produced the first steamboat, the first 
steam man-of-war, the first aqueduct and iron bridge, the torpedo, 
the cotton gin, the sewing machine, the reaper, the mower, the 
horse rake, the steam threshing machine, the steam plow, the 
telegraph, the telephone, the knitting machine, the Atlantic cable, 
the Hoe power printing-press, the electric light, the typewriter, 
the phonograph, and a vast number of other inventions and dis- 
coveries too numerous to place on my record. 

Attempts have been made to filch some of America's discover- 
ies and inventions, but the designs in that direction have been 
frustrated, as truth is always fortified by evidence. Two unsuc- 
cessful attempts have been made to deprive the American chem- 
ist, Mr. Milton Sanders, of his well-known, the first positive and 
successful electric light. 

Thales in 580 b. c. discovered that electricity could be pro- 
duced by friction; after that many scientific men produced elec- 
tricity through various modes, now well known. In the year 
1600 A. D. a Mr. Gilbert published a work on substances that 
possessed or produced electric and magnetic forces, but it was 
for ages left to the American statesman and philosopher, Benja- 
min Franklin, to discover the electricity that abounded in the air 
and man's power to collect and store it as he does his harvest 
crop; this fact was known to Mr. Franklin in 1732, and he pro- 
duced the evidence to the scientific world in 1752, and displayed 
its vast power; a power that slaughtered two unskilled Europeans 
who attempted to imitate Mr. Franklin and control and tax 
Heaven's resources. 

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, Mass., in the year 
1706; he died in Philadelphia in 1790, but up to 1844 electricity 
was used as a mere toy to amuse, when the American genius, 
Mr. Milton Sanders, a native of Ohio, brought forth from its 
long hidden gloom light and power, as we now witness it. Both 



334 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

in Cincinnati and in London Mr. Sanders set up his dynamos and 
brilliantly lit up with electric lights the large halls in which he 
addressed the people. Before visiting London he had endeav- 
ored to contract to light American cities. 

To give the reader a knowledge of the situation and facts, I 
here copy from the Chicago "Inter-Ocean " of September 4, 1891, 
when an attempt was made to deprive Mr. Sanders of his just 
rights, and Sailor I intervened. 



" ANTIQUITY OF THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. 



*' It Was Invented by an American in 1844. 

" ' Davenport, Ia., August 10, 1891. 
"'To the Editor: 

" * The " Scientific American " of July 11, 1891, publishes this: 

" ' '' Antiquity of the Electric Light — (From the ' Scientific 
American' of December 9, 1848): 'New Electrical Light — The 
inventors of a new electrical light exhibited at the Western Liter- 
ary Institute, Leicester, on its recent re-opening under the new 
auspices, expect, it is said, to apply it generally to shop and street 
illumination, and they state that while the conveying will cost no 
more than gas the expense of illumination will be one-twelfth the 
price of the latter light." 

" * The " Scientific American " of 1848 names Messrs. Staite 
-and Petrie of England as the inventors of this new light. 

" ' This is a great error and can be shown to be such. There 
is not a shadow of doubt but that the then well-known American 
chemist, Milton Sanders, was the inventor of our present electric 
light — not in 1848, but in 1844; and sold his discovery to Mr. 
Staite of England. The merits of Mr. Sanders' light were 
thoroughly tested in Newport, Ky., and in Cincinnati in 1844, 
and the opinion of men of science given. 

" ' Editor Charles Crist of Cincinnati, the well-known statisti- 
cian, published the prediction, in 1844, that the Sanders light 
would become the light of the world at no distant day. 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 335 

Mr. Sanders' confidence in his light was unbounded, but his 
capital at that day was limited. He resolved to go to England 
and introduce his light. He contracted with his chief workman, 
Mr. John Starr, and on the 17th of February, 1845, set sail for 
Liverpool in the packet " Oxford.'* 

" * He exhibited his light in London, on a magnificent scale, 
and proposed to light that city. The authorities declined to 
abandon their gas for the new light. Mr. Sanders' cherished 
hopes being blighted he sold his dynamos, machinery, and inven- 
tion, and turned his artist, Mr. Starr, over to a Mr. Staite. 

** * In the latter part of 1848 word arrived in America that a Mr. 
Staite was exhibiting a wonderful light which he had invented. 

This statement was published in the '* Scientific American " 
and other journals. 

Upon which Mr. Sanders, in April, 1849, wrote to the Cairo 
" Delta" as follows: 

" ' '* The light is of my own invention, and belongs to no other 
person. I invented it in Newport, Ky., in the fall of 1844. This 
Mr. Staite, who is now exhibiting the light and lecturing about it, 
is the very man to whom the light was sold." 

The above published facts are now before me. (Cairo was 
then the competitor of Chicago for the ascendency.) 

'''Mr. John Starr died in England in February, 1849, and 
with him died the English end of the electric light. 

Mr. Staite was not an electrician, but the showman, the 
Barnum. I ask the " Inter-Ocean " to do justice to America, to 
genius, and the dead. 

" ' A. C. Fulton.' " 

Good reader, I have within my diary the thrilling and heart- 
stirring narratives of many Northern and Southern soldiers and 
officers of our late war, as well as of those of foreign wars, a recital 
of which would harrow up your soul. I must give you a brief 
sketch of one. I select this one, as he is the brother of the great 
chemist, Mr. Milton Sanders, and resides at Davenport, la, I 
here present the sketch: 



33^ A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

'' Davenport, Ia., June 26, 1896. 
'^General Add. H. Sanders, of the Union Army, Davenport, la. 
" Good Sir: Will you please to give me the date of your com- 
mission in the Army? The date of your capture and imprison- 
ment and discharge from the rebel prison, with a brief statement 
of your prison life and your physical condition, and also please 
to give me the date of your adopting the profession of newspaper 
editor, and the date of the birth of the Cairo ' Delta ' which you 
edited. I desire to place the facts on my diary for coming gen- 
erations. I now have within my diary some very important his- 
torical facts connected with your brother Mr. Milton Sanders, the 
chemist. 

** Respectfully yours, 

" A. C. Fulton." 

"Mr. A. C. Fulton: 

"Dear Sir: My answers to the questions you ask are 
briefly: 

" I. I was commissioned lieutenant colonel of the Sixteenth 
Iowa Infantry by Governor Kirkwood, November 14, 1861. At 
the time I was his military aid, and in command of Camp Mc- 
Clelland, this city. 

" 2. I was captured July 22, 1864, at the battle of Atlanta, 
where my command received the first charge of the enemy and 
opened the battle. My regiment was surrounded and captured 
after we had made prisoners of two Arkansas regiments and two 
Texas companies, or their survivors. 

" 3. I was released from rebel prisons at the general exchange 
of March i, 1865, made near Wilmington, N. C. I was at one 
time in the prison at Charleston, S. C, and one of those exposed 
to the fire of our own guns. For over four months of my prison 
life my rations were one pint of corn meal a day and a little sour 
sorghum; when released I was a mere skeleton, with premonitory 
symptoms of what proved to be ' prison fever,' a malignant type 
of typhoid. Arriving home I lay insensible for several days at 
my brother's house; hc/took the disease from me and died, as also 
did my mother-in-law, Mrs. Donaldson. 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 337 

" 4. My first editing was as associate editor of the Cincinnati 
' Commercial ' in 1844. Visiting Davenport in the summer of 
1845-46, I edited the ' Gazette ' while here, my brother Alfred's 
paper. In 1856 I moved here and became his partner. I was its 
political editor till the war fully opened. 

"5. The Cairo 'Delta' was issued in the spring of 1848; I 
forget the date of the first number. After nearly two years' pub- 
lication I received a bonus of one thousand dollars to remove to 
Evansville, Ind., and purchased the ' Daily Journal ' ; I edited and 
published it till coming here in 1856. 

" Presuming these answers to your questions are sufficient for 
the object, I am 

" Yours truly, 

" Add. H. Sanders. 

" Davenport, la., June 2^, 1896." 

When this war broke out. Sailor I, knowing that New Orleans 
would be a point of contest, and that every military officer and 
military engineer acquainted with that latitude through experi- 
ence would be in the Confederate Army, and that the Northern 
invaders would be unacquainted with the military situation, and 
might meet the fate of General Pakenham, who was for days de- 
layed for want of a correct knowledge of the military situation of 
the country, I in December, 1861, from inspection and surveys 
got up military maps, embracing rivers, lakes, canals, timber, 
swamp lands, roads, and bridges, for which Sailor I received the 
thanks of the Government through Mr. Simon Cameron, Secre- 
tary of War, in words as follows: 

"War Department, December 30, 1861. 
" A. C. Fulton, Esq., Davenport, la. 

" Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of the map of the citv 
of New Orleans and vicinity, lorwarded by you to this depart- 
ment. 

" The thanks of the Government are due to you for this practi- 
cal manifestation of your devotion to the cause of our country 



338 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

in this unprecedented trial of the strength of our institutions. 
With much respect, 

" Your Obt. Servant, 

'' Simon Cameron, 

" Secretary of War." 

As is well known this disastrous war grew out of the African 
slave question and caused a vast destruction of life and property, 
and many suffered losses at a distance from the battlefield. 
Sailor I was aiding an unsuccessful adventurer in opening Mt. 
Ida Boarding School or College in Davenport, Scott County, 
Iowa, that I built and owned, including the furniture, and with 
bright hopes had placed all in good Western order, when the 
homeless Twenty-eighth Iowa Regiment made a raid into 
town and took possession of the premises by forcing the locks of 
every room, and set up several cookshops and tumbled straw into 
the first floor for the soldiers' bedding, whilst other soldiers and 
the officers took possession of the beds and couches and the floors 
of the second and third stories. I found it very injurious to the 
boarding-school beds for the officers to sleep in them with their 
boots on after a rain, when there were no sidewalks on the 
streets. After two weeks the troops got transportation to the 
front of battle, leaving two sick soldiers in the hospital room. 
This was Mt. Ida's death wound. 

I with care counted up the destruction and loss, placed it on 
paper which is now before me. and says " Loss and Damage, 
$988." To the correctness of this bill I affirmed before Mr. John 
C. Bills, attorney, then intending to request the State or the 
General Government to aid me in quarterine the soldiers, but a 
second thought told me that the honor of perhaps being the only 
individual sailor of the world who quartered a regiment at his 
own large cost was worth more than the small sum that would 
obliterate that honor. The consequence is the bill for damages 
will never be receipted. 

Without a doubt the African slave was the cause of North 
America's home war of the sixties ; I must therefore take from my 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 



339 



diary the number of those slaves that each State possessed in 
1863, when emancipation took place, and place it on record for 
the information of future generations. Those slave States num- 
bered sixteen: 

NUMBER OF SLAVES. 



Arkansas, 

Alabama, 

Delaware, 

Florida, 

Georgia, 

Kentucky, 

Louisiana, 

Maryland, 

Mississippi, 

Missouri, 

North Carolina, 

South Carolina, 

Tennessee, 

Texas, 

Virginia, 

West Virginia, 



111,103 

435.132 

1.797 

61,753 
462,234 
225,490 
333.012 

87,188 
436,696 
114,965 
331.081 
402,541 

275.784 
180,682 

472,516 
18,371 



The slaves of sixteen States, numbering 3,950,345 slaves, a vast 
number of human beings to be under the absolute control of 
man, to work and be properly treated or abused, just as the mas- 
ter thought proper — no force, no law to stay or check any wrong 
or cruelty that the master might think proper to inflict ! 

As a war measure President Abraham Lincoln abolished 
slavery. Many occurrences that I witnessed took place in sla- 
very days, which even now it would be very hard to credit. I 
must place on record some mild everyday acts, not for the reader 
of the present day, but for centuries to come, when slavery's his- 
tory will possess a value. 

Slavery's tasks and hardships brought thousands of blacks to 
untimely graves. I will take from my diar\^ the fact that I, in 
connection with Joseph Baldwin, a brother of Recorder Baldwin 



340 ^ LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

of the second municipality of New Orleans, contracted to erect a 
section of the St. Mary's market house on Tchoupitoulas Street, 
and to erect a prison for the suburb Lafayette Parish of Jefferson, 
now within the corporation of New Orleans. Mr. Joseph Bald- 
win was a brickmaker and the owner of many slaves, as all his 
work was performed by negro slave labor. He possessed a very 
limited knowledge of constructing or planning buildings. Our 
contract was that Mr. Baldwin should furnish the bricks and the 
laborers to carry the bricks to the bricklayers as the work pro- 
gressed. When his brick carriers appeared on the grounds ready 
for work, with their small boards to carry the bricks upon their 
heads, the whole gang were young negro girls of many shades 
of dark. Sailor I, who had but a few years previously raised my 
tar-smeared hand at the funeral of the mysterious girl, on the 
Bahama ocean desert, and solemnly pledged myself to the god- 
dess Diana, to ever battle against the curse of slavery, could not 
in conscience permit the slave girls to perform the labor for my 
benefit, and I immediately sent them and their slave driver back 
to their master; then a bitter war of diplomacy took place in 
which the slave interest took sides, but the sailor's hand and pen 
outweighed the master's heavy purse and heavy whip, and no 
slave girls toted bricks on their heads to my workmen. 

While we were erecting the new parish prison the old insti- 
tution stood near by, and frequently a master brought or sent a 
slave by a trusty messenger, to receive a certain number of lashes 
of the whip, according to his misdeeds or supposed misdeeds; the 
turnkey received pay for applying the lash to the slaves' backs. 
I suppose the master or the mistress ordered the number of 
stripes to be given. The slaves were tied hand and feet to a 
ladder-like frame whilst receiving the lashes. 

In the prosperous days of the thirties planters estimated that, 
if an average slave could furnish ten years of a working life, that 
the ten years' labor would pay first cost and eight per cent, on the 
investment, leaving the balance of the slave's life, less cheap food 
and cheap clothing, a clear profit. I estimate that between the 
introduction of slavery in the West India Islands, South America, 



PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 341 

Mexico, and the United States up to the Lincoln emancipation 
act, that over 28,000,000 slaves were living, or had been placed 
beneath the earth in death after their life of slavery. A larger 
number than the entire population of the two kingdoms of Spain 
and Portugal! 

The Africans must be very prolific to supply the vast new 
Western world with its first stock of slaves and then keep up the 
necessary supply of re-enforcements required through death, 
which was much larger at an early day than in later years, and 
there was other outside territory to supply at the same time. 

Slavery is now blotted out and gone, and the North and the 
South have a future for greatness before them; but mark! the day 
is fast approaching if not now, in which the people of the South 
will be the true Americans of this republic, and the safeguards of 
the American nation! Mark a sailor's prediction. The North 
is fast becoming a mongrel mixture of foreigners of many nations, 
and mostly of the lower grade, who are claiming all space on 
shore, and all offices, not as Americans, but as foreigners, for 
so they speak and openly claim, a vast number of whom do not 
possess brains of a quality to point out to them their lacking. 

The merchant and the marine service is short of good and 
efficient officers and sailors ; an increase would benefit the service 
and encourage ship-building. The land has a surplus of men in 
all and every known branch of industry, so I say, young man, go 
to sea; a few years' service will put the double and twist in you, 
and if you live you will be of some value to the world, but you 
must rise, not settle down to the bottom. The lower and the 
middle stations of life are thronged, but there is an abundance of 
room on top, so hasten and make your way on top, where there 
is always a demand for such as can make the journey. There is 
plenty of room on top! 

All persons, many of them perhaps unconscious of the fact, in 
writing, have what I will call their rhythm, which identifies their 
work independent of words or subject. The rhythm of Sailor I 
rests in a cross between " Auld Lang Syne " and " The Girl I 
Left Behind Me." 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

A CALL TO CUBA BY DEFEATED BUT NOT CONQUERED PATRIOTS 

SPAIN AND CUBA AS SEEN THROUGH A SAILOR's SHIP-GLASS 
TAKEN FROM MY DIARY OF 1 88 1. 

r^ ENERAL WEYLER had shot or driven thousands of 
Cubans to the mountains and to exile. Many escaped to 
Key West and adjacent keys and islands. Amongst those who 
escaped to Key West was one of the Spanish sailors of the slave- 
ship that the schooner " Metamora " captured off Cuba, and the 
slaveship's second mate, the Portuguese Mr. Salmas; they, after 
the capture of their ship, had settled down in Cuba and married 
native Cubans, and both had small tobacco plantations, and one 
had two grown-up sons and the other had three; the whole seven 
were patriots or rebels, and were in the army and had to flee to 
Key West to escape General Weyler's leaden messengers of 
death. 

I had seen or kept up an occasional correspondence with Mate 
Salmas, and in 1881 I was greatly astonished to be requested by 
him to visit Key West; with this request was a lengthy and ex- 
tremely interesting account of war, hardship, bloodshed, and 
death that now causes me to shudder. 

As I had a desire to once more make a sea voyage, I immedi- 
ately set sail for the Key. On my voyage I drew up an extended 
programme of operations; on landing at Key West I found Mate 
Salmas, his three sons, and several hundred refugees from Cuba; 
one of Mr. Salmas' sons was a rebel ofBcer. He said that the 
Cubans were defeated but not conquered, and that thousands 
were but waiting for a favorable opportunity to throw off the 
oppressive, tyrannical Spanish yoke. 

A council of war was held by thirteen of us, in a miserable 

342 



A CALL TO CUBA. 343 

shanty, built in part with loose stone piled up into a wall and 
rough refuse boards; the openings in the stone wall and between 
the rough boards were filled in with mud and mixed with short 
weeds and grass to make it adhesive. This dingy hut on Key 
West's rocky beach was a befitting hall in which to concoct trea- 
son, or deliberate on the emancipation of many thousands. 

I informed the unwashed and seedy assembly, of which I was 
an average sample, that whilst at sea I had drawn up a war chart 
and a full programme with lines traced both on the chart and on 
my memory, so that if the chart and the programme were cast 
away, that their efficiency would continue to exist. I also stated 
to the small but resolute assembly in the dingy hut that it was a 
desperate undertaking, and that its whole strength and success 
rested in its desperation and the unthought-of boldness of the act 
from any Spanish standpoint, together with its cruel result and 
fate of the Spanish army, if necessary to secure victory and 
liberty. 

My proposition was to procure all the forces possible, and ac- 
cumulate military stores, and make a landing in the sickly season 
of the coming July. Not at an obscure point of the Island, but 
as near Havana as possible; a point of landing to be immediately 
selected through a careful investigation and accurate charts of 
Havana and vicinity gotten up with correct distances, with roads, 
bridges, and all landmarks necessary to make a perfect and cor- 
rect military map or maps, with water supply noted, and the first 
aim should be to immediately capture the city of Havana; strong 
resistance and deadly strife were with certainty counted on. 
Sailor I was selected to immediately visit Cuba and prepare mili- 
tary charts. I well knew it would be bad policy to ship from Key 
West on such a mission, and my passport now before me says that 
I shipped from Pensacola, Fla., February 26, 1881, but I did not 
depart from Cuba for the United States on the day that this same 
passport alleges; but I utilized it to aid a poor prisoner of the 
late rebellion to escape in my name from the island to freedom; 
leaving me to take my chances of imprisonment in Havana's 
Morro Castle, or, perhaps death. 



344 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

To prepare myself for the coming work, I had practiced step- 
ping ofif a measured mile, or five miles, to test my ability to meas- 
ure distances accurately, by walking over it; this, with a pocket 
compass, a supply of pencils and paper, was my outfit, with paper, 
ink, and pens at my lodging quarters. 

I had at the onset concluded to become a newspaper reporter, 
if necessity called for the act. Immediately on breaking up camp 
in Iowa for the voyage, I commenced writing up the journey 
and the world, the best I knew how, and as I saw it, so as to have 
a stock in trade on hand if I should be overhauled in Cuba as a 
spy, which, without a doubt, a spy I would be called, and was. I 
made my landing from a passenger ship in regular order, and 
went to work, taking a few notes on the commercial situation, 
and playing the press reporter to fall back on in case of necessity. 
I thoroughly reconnoitered the surrounding country, jotting 
down in a mysterious manner a vast amount of work; examined 
the coast for landing light-draught vessels ; traced the water sup- 
ply to its source, and noted the points where dynamite could be 
used to knock it out of existence, if the cruel act had to be per- 
petrated to capture the city. 

I had, in my judgment, perfected my task, save and except an 
examination of the Morro and the Blanco castles. I felt confi- 
dent that if land forces could get and hold possession of the 
surrounding territory, that those castles could be taken by tun- 
neling and blowing them up with dynamite. I feared the prox- 
imity of water, and desired to know more about them and their 
capacity for resistance than previously known by outsiders. 

I had consumed one day and a portion of the second day when 
I considered that I had collected all the facts that could be col- 
lected by me in my then condition, and feeling well pleased with 
the insight obtained, I slowly struck across a wide stretch of com- 
mons towards my quarters at a sailors' boarding house in the 
city, a selection that I considered the safest refuge. I had left my 
field of observation, the environs of the Morro Castle, some three 
hundred yards, when two men in uniform who were on their way 
from the city stepped before me; I saw that they were Spanish 




SLASH CHEEK JOHN'S FIRST DAY ON THE 
SCHOONER "METAMORA" IN THE WHITE 
MAN'S CLOTHING. 



A CALL TO CUBA. 345 

officers; one drew his sword and demanded my business. I in- 
formed them that I was looking over the country, investigating 
to gain knowledge, and the business situation to publish in part, 
at the same time pulling some five written sheets of paper out 
of my pocket which were addressed to the Davenport " Gazette," 
and in which I had not been very complimentary to the crown and 
authorities of Spain; both examined the paper, but I saw that they 
could not fathom the English writing to their satisfaction; they 
then ordered me to deliver my arms and all papers; I told them 
that I had no arms, and handed them one sheet of paper with a 
few pencil lines, dots, and figures on it and a pocket compass. 
The officer with the sword immediately exclaimed, " You will be 
a dead man within twenty-four hours. We were watching you 
stepping off the ground even within the dead line of the Castle; 
your fate is sealed ; you have no escape ; we have to take you to 
the Castle and execute you as a spy." Whilst he spoke an open- 
sided carriage, with driver and three persons in it, drove up before 
us and halted to listen to the officers' earnest words. One of 
the passengers in the carriage was a very old and feeble-looking 
man, with sunken eyes and locks of cotton whiteness. His com- 
panions were a young woman not over twenty years of age and 
a young man under twenty-four, and both in conversation called 
him uncle. The old man with great emotion spoke a few words 
to the officer with the sword, and the carriage moved some twenty 
feet, followed by the officer; soon the second officer was beckoned 
too, and I was left standing alone. An earnest talk took place at 
the carriage side. After a length of time I was called forward, 
and my communication to the Davenport " Gazette " was handed 
to the young woman to be read to the officers; she must have 
been well educated, for she hastily read it in Spanish. The officer 
with the sword bitterly condemned the letter, but I saw that his 
younger companion was not displeased. Then the superior offi- 
cer sharply said, " If released, will you as soon as possible 
leave Cuba and never divulge any information that you have ob- 
tained ? " I willingly and sincerely gave my pledge ; and requested 
the officer to return to me my small pocket compass to use in 



34^ A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

my flight from the island. He, without a word, but with a never- 
to-be-forgotten scowl handed it to me, and then, wdthout one 
word more, the two officers departed toward the Morro; I heard 
the rattle of gold as they stepped away. Then the old gentleman 
who had interceded and saved my life leaned toward me and with 
great exertion and earnestness said, " My name is Mariena; does 
the slave Slashed-cheek John yet live, and is he yet a slave, or is 
he free? Can you tell me? Speak quick! " I answered, " I can 
tell you," but before I could utter another word, he, with both 
hands raised, clutched at the air, and with a gasp for breath and 
a convulsive shudder, fell forward into the arms of his nephew. 
His two kindred, with great agitation and flowing tears, imme- 
diately inclined him backward to his seat, tore open his vest and 
underclothing to endeavor to revive him by rubbing his chest. 
I was for a moment riveted to the earth; for there before my sur- 
prised eyes was the cross and the kneeling angel that the three 
sailor executioners insisted on piercing with their deadly mus- 
kets, as he knelt in silent prayer on Florida's lonely everglade 
ocean beach. It was the Spanish slave merchant Mariena. 
Within a few minutes I took his delicate, snow-white hand to find 
him cold in death, without his knowing that Slashed-cheek John 
had escaped from slavery, and was then seated on his black throne 
in his Africa. They told the driver to turn round and hasten to 
their home. 

I then with sadness journeyed toward my sailor quarters, with 
the dying groans of Sailor Jim Nelson and the shrieks of one- 
legged Bill Brown ringing in my ears, as they lay on the slave- 
ship's deck, for I had plainly seen stains of human blood on that 
white hand. 

When I reached my sailor quarters I gathered up my contra- 
band charts, w^hich under the promise I had made to the Spanish 
officers to save my life I could never, never use. I well knew 
that I could not openly take a passage from Havana's port with- 
out great danger; and the unpleasant result of investigating the 
hidden mysteries of the Morro Castle, its position, strength, and 
surroundings caused my mind to dwell on musket balls and damp, 



A CALL TO CUBA. 347 

gloomy dungeons. I, therefore, without check or stop struck 
out for Cuba's northern beach, where I found a fishing craft 
manned by native Cubans, on the point of setting sail for Tortu- 
gas, to catch sea tortoises for the market. I requested passage 
by paying for it. The young captain and owner of the twelve- 
to fifteen-ton vessel, schooner-rigged, said he had no suitable ac- 
commodations for a passenger, not even a bed for a passenger. 
I told the captain that I did not want accommodations or a bed ; 
that I did but want a passage and something to eat by paying a 
full price for it, and that I might in case of necessity be useful to 
him, at the same time naming as my friends two well-known 
Cuban patriots. The young captain immediately said, '' Step on 
board, I will do the best I can for you," and I was in good season 
landed in safety on the Dry Tortugas. I had been knocked 
round and exposed to roughness until I appeared to be a wreck. 

To let my people and Iowa know Cuba's situation and where 
I was, I had previously taken and mailed at Cuba a copy of my 
collected report, the same that the young woman had read to the 
Spanish officers, and sent it to the Davenport " Gazette," and 
which copy was then published in that journal, and is now before 
me, and reads as follows: 

" CUBA AND KEY WEST THE CLIMATE, POPULATION, AND 

RESOURCES OF THOSE ISLANDS. 

" Havana, Cuba, March, 1881. 
" Editor of the ' Gazette ': 

" I have made eight voyages over and on the Gulf in this lati- 
tude, but never witnessed a more boisterous sea than we bufifeted 
during the first thirty-six hours of our outward voyage, and 
this was the experience of our captain, who numbers up his 
voyages by hundreds. A description would be but to repeat 
many like scenes. One occurrence will suffice. During the 
night a vast towering wave dashed with fury over the berthdeck, 
carrying the captain with it to the very verge; he saved himself 
from a watery grave by seizing a rope in his rapid passage. At 



34^ A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

one period many passengers surrounded the captain, lamenting 
their situation; he replied: ' Persons who go to sea must trust to 
God, and those who cannot trust him should stay on shore.' I 
have heard sermons on shore, and four funeral sermons at sea, 
but in my opinion I never heard a shorter or better one than the 
captain's, which, to be appreciated, should have been seen with 
the surroundings as well as heard. God and our kind captain, 
Mr. Wm. N. Cookey, landed the good steamer ' Admiral,' of the 
Pensacola and Havana line, safely within Spain's dominion. 

" Not many days since the passenger steamer ' Josephine ' of 
the New Orleans and Havana line, was wrecked on the Gulf; 
providentially, a towboat was within signal distance, and saved 
the passengers and crew from an untimely death. 

" I must write a few lines respecting nature's greatest wonder, 
the Gulf Stream ; we might call it a vast river flowing through the 
Atlantic Ocean. It rises or starts near Belize, in South America, 
and passes eastward by Cape Florida, the Bahamas, Cape Hat- 
teras, and dies out or loses itself on the banks of Newfoundland. 
In deep sea it is lOO miles wide, but increases when passing over 
shoals. It flows with a velocity of 3 to 4 miles an hour, and is 
elevated 3 or 4 feet above the ocean. Its temperature is from 
6° to 8° higher than that of the surrounding water. 

" In 183 1, during a dead calm, I threw myself from the deck of 
a brig to test its velocity by swimming against its current suffi- 
cient, as I judged, to hold myself stationary whilst the brig would 
drift with the flow, but in less than three minutes she drifted 
several lengths from me, and it was by great exertion that I 
gained her deck, almost exhausted, and added nothing to the 
cause of science, but ran a great risk, as the brig in the calm 
could not move one inch towards me; the boats were lashed 
down, and it would require time to free and launch them, and 
further, the Gulf is as well stocked with sharks as a village with 
dogs. 

" The island of Key West is a portion of the State of Florida, 
and is the most southerly point of Uncle Sam's dominion. It 
lies 80 miles distant from the island of Cuba. 



A CALL TO CUBA. 349 

" Its average width is 2 miles, and length 7 miles, and it is 
almost all composed of rock resting about 12 feet above the level 
of the sea. On many portions of the island no earth covers the 
rock, at others there is sufficient to have productive gardens. 
Cocoanut and banana trees, the latter with their leaves fully 4 
feet in length and nearly i foot in width; they subsist with very 
little soil, forcing their roots within the crevices of the rocks. 
There is no fresh water on the island; the supply is obtained from 
distilled sea water and rain. The city of Key West possesses 
a good harbor, and contains almost the entire population of the 
island. The next census will give the city a population of about 
1 1 ,000. 

** There are many handsome residences and four churches; 
there are near the city salt-water baths, and a large and handsome 
artificial lake; there is no timber, even for fuel, on the island, and 
the supply comes from the smaller but more favored adjacent 
islands. All the building lumber, as well as bricks, is brought 
from Pensacola. 

'' The United States has a marine hospital and barracks here, 
and here also are the headquarters of the wreckers of the Gulf, 
some of the descendants of the wild men of the Antilles; thcv 
are men inured to hardship and fearless lives. 

'' Key West has a world-wide reputation for cigar manufacto- 
ries, and here is where three-fourths of your Havana cigars are 
made, by an army of nearly 3000 cigar-makers, one firm employ- 
ing 700 hands; and lately two of the largest firms undertook to 
monopolize the Cuban tobacco crop, but went under. This has 
thrown over 1000 hands out of employment and affected the busi- 
ness of the whole island. 

" The city of Havana, Cuba, lies on the banks of a spacious bay, 
about 625 miles' sail from New Orleans. I find the change dur- 
ing the past fifty years within the then old city to be very trifling. 
A large portion of the buildings, and the same streets 20 to 30 
feet wide, with their 2 to 3 feet sidewalks remain just the same, 
but square stone blocks imported from New York have taken the 
plage of the then earth roadways. Those narrow streets are only 



350 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

of sufficient width for two teams to pass without colliding, yet a 
vast amount of business is transacted on them. In the more 
modern portions of the city the width of both streets and walks 
has been increased, and their roadways are mostly macadam. 

" The city contains 250,000 inhabitants, ninety-five per cent, of 
whom are Spaniards. Tliere are 6 journals published in the city, 
all in the Spanish language. The city is lighted by gas manu- 
factured from English coal, and is supplied with an abundance of 
pure water from vast springs in the mountains, a chain of which 
runs through the islands; the altitude of a portion of it rises 5000 
feet above the sea. Many of the cofifee estates are on the moun- 
tain sides. The city has street railroads and many expansive and 
massive hotels and public buildings. 

" No building, public or private, has chimneys, except kitchens, 
heat not being used at all. Hotel beds, even in the best hotels, 
charging $4 a day, consist of an elevated iron or wooden frame 
called a cot, over which a piece of canvas is stretched; some have 
fine woven wire instead of canvas; none have mattresses; a single 
sheet, blanket, and pillow is a full outfit, and many do not possess 
even these, as they are considered an unnecessary luxury. 

" The sugar crop of the island amounts to $50,000,000 annually, 
and the tobacco, raw and manufactured, over $25,000,000. Log- 
wood, braselete wood, mahogany, and fruit swell the exports to 
over $80,000,000, and not over one-half of the island is under 
cultivation ; and without doubt the sun does not shine on a more 
productive land. Eighty per cent, of this vast product is pro- 
duced through slave labor, but there is a gradual emancipation 
act now in force. 

" I observed more native Africans here than were to be seen 
in Louisiana in my day. They are mostly of old or middle age, 
as very few have been imported from Africa during the past fif- 
teen years. The island varies in width from 40 up to 140 miles, 
and is 700 miles in length and has over 800 miles of railroad. 

" The autocrat Governor General procures for the Spanish 
crown, through taxation of the people of the island, over $30,- 
CX)0,ooo annually. The debt created through the late rebellion is 



A CALL TO CUBA. 351 

all charged to the rebellious island, and has to be paid by it 
through taxation on her products, not by the nation at large. 
Spain's programme differs slightly from that of Uncle Sam's; 
the tax-paying natives, being feared, are seldom if ever permitted 
to hold office. 

" All religions have been tolerated for the past three years 
throughout Spain and her provinces, but there are no congre- 
gations or churches there except Catholic. Their congregations 
are principally composed of women and children, with a few old 
men who expect to die soon. The Government builds and sup- 
ports its churches and pays its preachers. Missionaries of vari- 
ous creeds occasionally hold service at the hotels. 

" We foreigners, on landing here, do not inquire Avhere the 
voting is going on, that we wish to help our friends at the polls 
in carrying the personal liberty ticket, or in electing Jackson, as 
has been done on Uncle Sam's side of the Gulf. The law permits 
no man to vote, even at a city election, who does not pay a tax 
of $25, and no man can vote for a member of the Cortes or Con- 
gress who does not pay a tax of $200. 

" If you desire to visit Cuba you must get a passport from a 
Spanish consul, for which you pay $4. No vessel will carry you, 
nor can you land without one, and before you can depart you 
must go to the Palace Grand, pay 25 cents for a stamp, and 50 
cents to cancel it; without this you cannot purchase a ticket to go 
with, and an officer boards the vessel to see that you depart. 

" No vessel is permitted to come to the shore, but must anchor 
off and land and receive all her freight and passengers by lighter 
and smaller boats. When you anchor, a police officer and two 
customhouse officers board your ship and remain with you, feast- 
ing at your table free of cost until you weigh anchor to depart. 

" Should you violate or defy the law or attempt to depart, there 
stand at the bay's entrance the Morro and Blanco castles, with 
their open and capacious-mouthed cannon prepared to belch forth 
their iron hail and mimic the thunders of heaven. 

'' Tf we foreigners complain of the Spanish laws or their 
foruT'litics. we are told, and no doubt rightly, that if the situation 



352 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

is not agreeable to us to keep away; that we did not come into 
the country to benefit Spain or the Spaniards, but ourselves. 

" Yours, 

"A. C. Fulton." 

Now, in 1898, my lifelike profile of Cuba's self, exhibiting 
angles, distances, and a world of work, coupled with information 
of situations, lay mockingly before me. I can never use or even 
exhibit them, for I solemnly pledged Spain's officers to never 
part with them or use any portion of the information that I filched 
in Cuba under false pretenses; vile, lifelike, mocking documents! 
I will now forever part with you. And before yonder ancient 
clock strikes to add to time its soon approaching hour, I shall 
consign you to the flames. Ah, how bright they blaze! Human 
brains must be mingled within their composition. I hope their 
stench will not contaminate Heaven's pure atmosphere. 

When a prisoner on the commons in Cuba, and in sight of the 
Morro Castle's gloomy cells, and the words were ringing in my 
ears that death was my doom within twenty-four hours, I pledged 
myself never to use or bestow any knowledge that I had obtained 
on the island, but I did not pledge myself not to tell the world of 
Spain's many cruel wrongs to man; wrongs that should cause the 
reader to shudder and cry shame! and despise the tyrants that 
deliberately perpetrated the many great wrongs, and those acts 
were the more heinous because they were perpetrated by the edu- 
cated and powerful against the uneducated and weak and helpless, 
and in many instances this cruelty was extended to helpless 
women and their children. No question of the horrid and cruel 
slaughter; not by common sneaking assassins, but by orders 
emanating from the throne and executed by the national officials, 
and whilst thousand after thousand were put to the sword, other 
thousands were banished from their homes that they had created 
and full one-half of Spain's population were mere serfs, to obey 
the minions of the crown and the bloodthirsty Church. Deny 
this horrid situation he who dare, for such would be written as 
ignorant of modern history and unfitted for a teacher. 



A CALL TO CUBA. 353 

Go back only to yesterday, and trace the oppression and 
wrongs perpetrated under and through the tyrant Charles L, the 
bigot Philip IL, and the imbecile Charles IV. A mixture of Aus- 
trian blood with the Spanish did not purify the corruption, but 
added to its virulence, and under whose sway, as all who know, 
Spain was on the constant wane. Look at the pools of warm, 
smoking blood that surround her inquisitions. Look at the 
many thousands of fleeing Jews dropping to the earth in death. 
It is a sickening and horrid sight. Then look at her cruel acts 
in Mexico, South America, and on the Antilles. Then later 
comes the " Virginius' " awful fate of butchery of Americans by 
General Weyler, who is not a high-minded general or a brave sol- 
dier, but a common hangman, and the question is, would not 
justice compel him to walk the plank to death? Those savage 
acts obliterate the greatness of Granada, Saragossa, and San 
Quintin; no wonder that the provinces stand at bay, and that 
Sailor I should extend to the Cubans my sympathy. 

In the thirties I dealt with Cuba; shipped fxour from the United 
States; every barrel was and had to be sold to the Spanish Gov- 
ernment. To sell to a merchant or an individual was confisca- 
tion of vessel and her cargo, and imprisonment of her ofificers, 
and the purchaser was subject to fine and imprisonment. Spain's 
ofificers sold the flour to the people, after adding such an addi- 
tional amount as an elastic conscience thought proper; this wrong 
and robbery was to support a crown and its minions, and stint 
the stomachs of thousands of working people, sailors included. 

The world well knows that Spain has ever looked upon her 
colonists as subdued serfs, to be lorded over by ignorant kings 
and bloated dons. Mistaken Spain! They, your colonists, are 
of a less pliable composition to that of Spain's home serfs ; their 
brain is of a superior order; it is untainted by excesses, or dwarfed 
by poverty. Those born and reared breathing the pure and free 
air of America's quarter can be shot, but not conquered. The 
world has an object lesson of this fact, from Plymouth's rock to 
Cape Horn, and it will be witnessed on the isles of the Antilles. 

Those island people and their warriors are within the influence 



354 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

of the Stars and Stripes, the not long since dress of naked re- 
pubHcan infancy, but now the impregnable breastwork of a giant 
nation. 

It is impossible to sustain a monarchy or vassalage in the 
American atmosphere. Spain's once vast colonial possessions 
embraced Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, 
Chili, Argentine Confederation, Patagonia, and all of Central 
America, and that portion of the United States from south of its 
southwest San 13iego, on the Pacific Ocean, on north to Van- 
couver's Juan de Fuca Strait and Pacific-bound island; thence 
south by east through the now vast territory of the United States 
to the Mississippi's many open mouths at the Atlantic Ocean; 
thence onward, embracing three great States, to Florida's eastern 
border, together with over two-thirds of all the island territory 
located in the waters of the north and south Atlantic. Now, in 
1898, of this vast territory she only possesses a mere speck — this 
speck is formed by the Philippine Islands, with a population of 
about 7,558,900; Cuba with a population of 1,340,000; Porto 
Rico with 738,000; Canary Islands with 297,000 people, and the 
unhealthy island of Fernando Po, of¥ the African coast, where 
Cuban prisoners are banished to die out of the way. This island 
has a population of but 1900, not including prisoners. And 
Cuba is this day balancing in fate's scales for freedom or the con- 
tinuation of vassalage. 

Spain's standing army of Spaniards on Cuba's Isle, to hold her 
serfs in subjection, in times of peace, numbers 25,000 strong, and 
derive their support from those that they hold in subjection. 

The total population of Spain proper, or the mother country, so 
called, at this period, 1898, is estimated at 16,986,800. When 
under the supremacy of the Moors, during near three centuries, its 
population exceeded 22,000,000, and when a Roman province, its 
population reached 37,000,000. Its population at one period 
since those days dropped down below 12,000,000, and is now on 
the wane. 

Time's clock told many hours and 1898 arrived, and Spain's 
tyranny and cruelty had not ceased, but continued to distress and 



A CALL TO CUBA. 355 

torture her island people, when on January 12, 1898, the far 
Western Davenport " Democrat," and its patriotic editor, Mr. 
H. T. Tillinghast, in connection with Davenport's Mayor, Mr. 
S. F. Smith, called upon the people to assemble and take action 
to relieve the distress and wants of the oppressed and starving 
Cubans. 

Sailor I, who had friends both on and beneath Cuba's blood- 
soaked soil, advocated tangible action. Then on the T3th the 
Davenport " Republican," in reporting the action taken by this 
public meeting, said that, 

" A. C. Fulton introduced the following resolution which tailed 
of support, not because it failed of sympathy, but the time was 
not opportune and it did not come clearly within the call as issued 
for the meeting, otherwise it would have received the unanimous 
indorsement: 

'' ' I move that a committee of five be appointed by this meet- 
ing to draft petitions, praying our President and Congress to 
grant Spain, and the Republic of Cuba, belligerent rights; and 
that said committee place those petitions with our various busi- 
ness houses to receive the signatures of the friends of distressed 
Cuba.' 

" Mr. Fulton spoke very interestingly of his personal experi- 
ences in Cuba and talked most feelingly in the behalf of an 
oppressed people who are unable to free themselves from the 
tyranny of Spanish rule. He was in favor of getting right after 
the aggressors. There were others who felt the same spirit, but 
the time may come, they said, when some more radical action 
may become necessary." 

And the Davenport "Democrat" in its report of January 13, 
1898, publishes as follows: 

" A. C. Fulton was full of enthusiasm and full of fight. He had 
personally known Cuba and the Cubans for sixty years, and he 
offered a resolution, the purport of which was that they be 



356 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

granted belligerent rights by the United States. The meeting did 
not give the resolution a second, however. It was felt by all the 
gentlemen present that, while they would be glad to send arms or 
go themselves and help the Cubans use them, this meeting, called 
to consider ways and means of relieving distress incident to the 
war, was not the place to take action of any sort that could em- 
barass the President or any arm of his administration in the cloth- 
ing and feeding and nursing of the sufferers. The gentlemen 
all signified their willingness to do all they could, as individuals, 
to support Mr. Fulton's resolution at any other time or place. 
He withdrew it, and it may appear again and elsewhere." 

Then on February 15, 1898, came the shocking and heart- 
rending explosion of the noble warship " Maine," that sent sev- 
eral hundred human beings to untimely graves, and caused tears 
of distress and sorrow to flow in a large number of previously 
happy homes. Upon which Sailor I published to the world as 
follows, and which forms a portion of a life's voyage: 

"' MAINE ' DISASTER ACCIDENT THEORY EXPLODED BY A. C. 

FULTON, WHO KNOWS THE HARBOR. 

, " The following communication in regard to the terrible 
* Maine ' disaster was received from A. C. Fulton, who is well ac- 
quainted with the harbor at Havana: 

" ' Editor of the " Republican ": 

" * Dear Sir: I desire through your journal to call attention to 
what I claim to be an error in connection with the ill-fated war- 
ship " Maine!" OfTicials and many journals claim that if her 
destruction was caused by a mine or a torpedo, the material form- 
ing her hull would be bent inward and furnish proof of outward 
force. Rut the probabilities are that the far more powerful ex- 
plosion from within, which almost instantly followed the outward 
force, would increase the first breach or drive the evidence out- 
ward, and contradict the presence of any mine or torpedo, and 
obliterate the looked for evidence, 



A CALL TO CUBA. 357 

" ' Lieutenant Blandin, who was on deck and who is the 
only man that throws any intelligent light on the subject, says a 
dull roar struck his ear and immediately a tremendous explosion, 
that carried destruction and death before it, took place. This 
preceding agitation clearly proves that no spark of fire, no heat 
from combustion or from heated wires, caused the disaster. If 
so, then no previous commotion would have preceded the igniting 
of the powder. It was the force and the act of the mine or the 
torpedo that the lieutenant heard passing through the ship's hull, 
the air chamber, and the magazine a single moment previous to 
the terrific explosion. 

'' ' Had I the right to advise, I would say consume no time in 
reeling of¥ red tape, but immediately put energetic divers on the 
trail. And as I know the harbor at some points to have deposits 
of alluvial I would make an extended and careful overhauling for 
lines or cables and fragments of shells. I entered and anchored 
in Havana Bay in 1829, and since, and know it to be favorable 
on a dark night and at a receding tide to control and use a tor- 
pedo to an advantage. 

" ' That you, Mr. Editor, may have some confidence in my 
judgment, I will say that I operated ofif and on for over forty 
years, and have worked expressly at times in experimenting with 
explosives. My first experiment took place in the year 1819, 
and was a grand success. 

" ' A. C. Fulton. 

" ' Davenport, la., February 19, 1898.' " 

Then on April 13, 1898, the Davenport *' Republican " pub- 
lished as follows: 

" A COMMUNICATION. 



" A, C. Fulton on the * Maine * Explosion and on Ciiha — He is 
Haunted by the Scenes of Torture zvJiich Have Been Taking 
Place on the Island. 

" Davenport is alive with sympathy for the Cuban sufferers, 
but it is safe to say that there is not a man in the whole country 



358 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

who thrills with a more intense sense of the injustice that is be- 
ing done on suffering Cuba than A. C. Fulton. His intimate 
acquaintance with Havana and its vicinity, and his knowledge of 
the structure and mechanism of ships, make his opinion more 
than usually valuable. The following is a communication from 
Mr. Fulton, which will be widely read: 

" ' Editor of the " Republican ": 

'* ' Dear Sir: I desire to say, that through experience I am posi- 
tive that the warship '' Maine " was wrecked by an outside mine 
or torpedo, which in crashing through the outer timber and iron 
walls of the ship at the same moment drove with it a rushing tor- 
rent of water, that surrounded the fiery explosive on all sides, 
to save most of the magazines, and cause astonishment to the 
naval committee. 

" ' This water in a very few minutes filled the ship's vast bulk. 
Had the work of a firebrand or a spark originated within the 
heated dry chambers and walls of the ship, not a magazine or 
vestige of powder would have remained to be handled and gazed 
on with wonder. The water that protected the magazines would 
not have been present in the ship's hull until after the explosion 
of the magazines. 

" ' All — every indication plainly points to the fact that the poor 
sailors perished, and that the good ship " Maine " was wrecked 
by a deliberately manufactured and planted mine of powerful 
capacity. 

" * My desire is to convey to the interested what I claim to be 
plain facts. 

" ' At an early day and now I have my own small troubles with 
Spain's Cuba. I am at night startled in my sleep by the agoniz- 
ing screams of tortured prisoners, and the dying groans of pale, 
emaciated children, and the prayers of starving mothers are con- 
stantly ringing in my ears; whilst I am surrounded by the 
bloody quivering, writhing bodies of 261 American sailors. A 
sickening sight of cruelty that eclipses Armenia's more humane 
slaughter, and compels me to speak. I cannot rest. For Spain, 



A CALL TO CUBA. 359 

in hopes of reducing the repubUcan majority on the island, is now 
kiUing off hundreds of thousands. 

'' ' I cut all down to the smallest possible space; did I not, the 
full history of cruelty would shock the reader. 

'' ' Respectfully yours, 

" ' A. C. Fulton. 

*' ' Davenport, la., April 12, 1898.' " 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

A JOURNEY TO NEW ORLEANS, VERA CRUZ, THE CITY OF 
MEXICO; THENCE TO THE BATTLEFIELDS OF THE TEXAS 
REVOLUTION AND INDIAN TERRITORY. 

/^OOD READER, 1884 has arrived, and I will take you with 
me, or report to you from my diary a journey from Daven- 
port, la., down the Mississippi to New Orleans, and thence by 
sea to Vera Cruz; then inland to the City of Mexico, then from 
the city to the Texas revolutionary battlefields. 

April 10. 

Here we are at Cairo, to see that city and the junction of our 
two great rivers, the Ohio and the Mississippi. My object, as I 
journey, is to see, and see I do. I get up early, lose no daylight, 
and were I a Joshua I would stop the sun, and rob the night to 
lengthen day. 

The geographical feature of Cairo and the rivers at that point 
have greatly changed since I first visited it in 1838. Where my 
boat then landed large trees now grow. Land has formed and 
extended since that date, south and down the rivers full i^ mile, 
and the Mississippi has left its old bed west of Cairo high and dry. 
Where steamers once plowed the waters, forest trees now swiftly 
grow. This change has destroyed the landing on the Mississippi 
side and compelled boats to add full three miles to their journey 
to find wharfage and a harbor on the Ohio. This change was 
wrought through the Cairo Company placing a large stone break- 
water on the Mississippi side five miles above Cairo, which threw 
the current of the river west into Missouri, cutting hundreds of 
acres of land ofif from the State, with houses, barns, and orchards. 
The Iron Mountain Railroad has been compelled to place works 
on the Missouri side to check devastation. 

360 



A JOURNEY TO NEW ORLEANS. 361 

A few miles above Cairo the Mississippi and Ohio have cut 
into the narrow neck of land to an extent that bids fair in time 
to cut through and convert the territory occupied by Cairo into a 
triangle island. The United States Mississippi Improvement 
Commission have the situation of this cut under consideration. 

Some seven years since an adventurer from St. Louis squatted 
on the newly made territory at Cairo, and claimed it to be vacant 
government land. The Cairo Company contested this claim 
within the courts, and after a six years' contest obtained a decree 
against the squatter. 

I will now view New Orleans and Louisiana. Thirty years 
have retired or placed within the tomb most of the then planters, 
merchants, and mechanics, and the same period has brought 
others onto the stage of action. I have taken great interest in 
ascertaining if there has also been an advancement in the con- 
dition of the white or the black races. My judgment may be at 
fault, but in that judgment I have to say that as a whole there 
has not been, and especially intellectually, a really forward move- 
ment on the part of the whites. No Mr. Hunt, Grimes, Slidell, 
Rosilias, or Christy now. True, cities and plantations have been 
extended, railroads built, and space has been occupied through 
the labors of both whites and blacks. Slavery not existing, each 
and every man has to, or is expected to, earn his own bread, but 
a vast number of the present generation go into the bread busi- 
ness with perceptible reluctance. Too large a number of the 
whites for the public good consider labor or exertion degrading; 
the consequence is that the blacks are becoming almost the uni- 
versal artisans, mechanics, and laborers. 

This situation and great change is very perceptible at and from 
Cairo down to the Gulf. 

At New Orleans I visited many of the workshops and build- 
ings being erected, some of them equal to any in Chicago, and 
frequently found the entire force, from contractors down, to be 
blacks. One building, a massive and grand structure on Canal 
Street, its outer walls being built with pressed brick, cannot be 
excelled, if equaled, by any similar work in Chicago, and the boss 



362 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

and all the workmen are blacks — some of them ex-slaves, and 
black of the deepest dye. Those working blacks being producers 
will always possess money, and as they are almost universally 
sober, the day is not distant in which they will make their pres- 
ence felt. 

There has been yearly a gradual increase of building, and the 
extension of railroads into Texas has greatly benefited New^ 
Orleans; benefits which will yearly increase as the fertile region 
through which they pass becomes improved. 

The sanitary condition of the city has been greatly benefited 
since my day of the thirties up to 1842, by the drainage of adja- 
cent swamps and introducing stone curbs and gutters. 

I have consulted several sugar planters and visited growing 
crops," and there has never been a fairer prospect for a heavy crop. 
The cane is about one foot in height, well set, and healthy. 

Cotton is also doing well, and the acreage of both sugar and 
cotton will be larger than usual. 

Corn is doing splendidly — never much better, and an increase 
of ground has been planted. 

It is worth a long journey to see the sugar cane and cotton 
plants growing. Yes, and to see the magnificent Cotton Ex- 
change, and make a trip to the lake, and stroll along the grand 
old levee and see the big steamers and foreign vessels within the 
harbor. 

Truly can I say, '' beautiful country, beautiful city." I have 
established my headquarters at the City Hotel during my limited 
stay, a structure that I aided in erecting some fifty years ago. 

I set out this morning to call on some of my early associates, 
but visiting their former domiciles found strange occupants. I 
searched the city directory, but found no familiar names ; I visited 
the cemeteries, and there, chiseled upon marble slabs, appeared 
the names of many I had known. 

I paid a visit to the Produce Exchange, a fine structure erected 
on a brick foundation that was laid by your humble servant in 
1833. I also visited the buildings, or the site of nine buildings 
erected by myself, and once owned by me. Three had been 



A JOURNEY TO NEW ORLEANS. . 363 

burned, two taken down to l)e replaced by larger ones, and four 
remain in good order. 

Notwithstanding;- war's ravages New Orleans continues to 
grow, and the extent of her commerce is astonishing to an Iowa 
man. The late census gives her a population of 217,000. This 
canvass was made in the summer season, when not fewer than 
25,000 residents had gone into summer quarters. The winter 
population is not less than 300,000. Since I left here in 1842 the 
population has increased over 100,000. 

I have been reconnoitering all over this great and well-spread- 
out city. I have seen so many interesting sights that it would 
be folly to attempt to put all on paper. We have high water 
down here, but it has not yet affected the railroads running 
North, but those running South are from one to three feet under 
water. The line running to Morgan City, on Bay St. Louis, has 
been abandoned to the fioods, but as there is now a slight fall, 
no general overflow is looked for. The Mississippi now stands 
about six feet above the average level of the streets. I observe 
that some Eastern and Western journals place the river sixteen 
feet above the streets of the city. This, if correct, would put six- 
teen feet of water over the whole city. The levees, thus far, have 
stood the rise and are expected to continue a proper protection, 
and no inundation is looked for. 

My stay is quite brief. We sail for Vera Cruz to-morrow. 
Before leaving Davenport I received letters that this would be 
the last packet week, on account of the quarantine against yellow 
fever, and such I find to be the fact. True, there is danger, and 
danger lurks in all places. Cowards die monthly; the valiant 
never die but once, which saves a larsre stock of anxietv. 

I visited the World's Exposition grounds and buildings situ- 
ated above the city, near the river. The inclosure embraces 
about 150 acres, with a natural live-oak grove. The buildings 
cover 29} acres. The main building, now under way, covers 20 
acres, which is just equal to five of our Davenport blocks, includ- 
ing all their streets and alleys. The time rolls show that 420 men 
are employed on this gigantic work. 



3^4 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

One notable fact connected with this city is that very few tene- 
ment houses, where several families are huddled together, exist. 
The merchants, clerks, mechanics, and laborers own in a great 
measure their residences. 

New Orleans has a little '* boom." I can see it on each of my 
visits. Stores are filling up, real estate auctioneers increasing in 
numbers and dressing well, and you will frequently hear a serious 
looking man on the street say to his companion, " Corner lot! " 
Expectations are also booming on account of the coming expo- 
sition, but should this be a sickly season the exposition will come 
to naught, and this beautiful and enterprising city will be set back 
many years. My prayer is that a kind Heaven may divert such a 
disaster. 

The veteran Confederates here daily fight all their battles over 
again. The names of Lee, Johnson, Hood, and Forrest can be 
heard on every street car, and every boat where a few may chance 
to meet; but as they draw no pensions, they should be entitled to 
this poor privilege. 



A VOYAGE TO VERA CRUZ BY THE STEAMSHIP WHITNEY. 

April 17, 1884. 

Here we are within the harbor at New Orleans, where, previous 
to railroad invasion, lay around us the black hulls of the vessels 
of every nation, and upward we gazed through a forest of masts; 
but now a meager show of sea-going vessels is presented. 

We cast of¥ our hawser, and the good steamship ** Whitney " 
glides like a swan into the current. Her deep keel plows fur- 
rows in the Mississippi's turbid waters. We approach the coast. 

The floods are spread out to an extent that, did you not see 
dwellings, sugar houses, and trees, you would suppose you were 
upon a vast lake; this expansive overflow and the ocean are one. 

We now strike the jetties, but naught is to be seen save the 
heads of battered wooden piling faced with willow mattresses; 
the greatness, the utility of this expensive structure rest beyond 
the vision beneath the waters. Here a constant change in the 



A JOURNEY TO NEW ORLEANS. 365 

extension of the alluvial is going on, which is greatly increasing, 
not diminishing. The land has formed and extended seaward 
over four miles since I entered the Mississippi in 183 1. 

Onward we glide, and slowly the shore recedes from view, and 
the broad ocean lays expanded before us, and now twilight is pre- 
paring to dof¥ its dress of day, to assume night's garb of somber 
hue, and the ocean within nature's cradle has rocked itself to 
sleep; and the winds have hushed to let it slumber; and now vast 
clouds of various shades and density pile themselves up in fan- 
tastic shapes to form the sleeper's canopy, whilst others as senti- 
nels march and countermarch in single and double file along the 
ether boulevards of the zenith. Sleep, mother of all first life, and 
grandmother of all present life; sleep, and dream of enchantment 
be with thee! Fear not, for an ever vigilant Omnipotence 
watches over thee. 

The high temperature of the water indicates that we have 
entered the Gulf Stream; a river of tepid water with its elevated 
surface flowing over three miles per hour within the ocean, and 
the most violent elements have to switch ofif and give it the right 
of way. We are now upon the wide ocean, without an object on 
which to rest the eye. 

THE THRONE OF ^OLUS. 

A heavy gale is now springing up. The sun has sunk out of 
sight and abandoned the ocean to a lashing tempest. Three 
rough, boisterous days have passed; the tempest heightens; dark 
clouds shoot up with lightning speed to the zenith, and night has 
come with a starless sky. The sea is running high, and our ship 
is plunging like a mad leviathan of the deep, and the very sea 
trembles under the artillery of the sky. There is a grandeur, an 
awful grandeur, in the scene. 

Night's darkness has passed; the clouds disperse, a bright sun 
appears. Good heart, noble ship; thou hast weathered an awful 
night upon the Gulf of storms and thunder. 

The Gulf of Mexico is the very throne of JEolus; the empire of 



366 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

storms which seldom skmiber. Here the frosts of the frigid 
North meet on neutral grounds the heat of the torrid zone, to 
riot and create convulsions in the air. 

Our spacious and palatial cabin is well ventilated, fare is fault- 
less, yet some fastidious passengers complain, especially of the 
weakness of the condensed milk. No doubt but some shrewd 
Yankee has utilized a gentle shower that had been filtered 
through the milky way! Goodness! what a contrast between this 
voyage and my first in 1829; then my quarters were a contracted 
forecastle, a halfway house between Pandemonium and Paradise; 
a sailor's chest my seat, my couch a board bunk, with an 
almost adamantine mattress, and minus a pillow, and ten days of 
the voyage on quarter rations and a small allowance of water. 
One young man succumbed to the trying ordeal, and was en- 
tombed within the briny deep; no kin to shed a tear, yet sympa- 
thy surrounded the departed. The weather-beaten cheek of the 
sailor paled, and his eyes moistened as the corpse sank within its 
deep, watery grave. 

I said a contrast! yes, a great contrast. Now my quarters are 
not a contracted forecastle, but a spacious saloon with damask 
drapery, a cushioned chair to recline upon, and at night a downy 
pillow, with a mattress as soft as moonlight. 

Some sailors with sorrow say that innovation has stepped on 
deck, and that the sailor's occupation is gone. Very true that 
steam weighs the anchor, mans the helm, and sights the gun, 
but there is yet an open field for sailors, no pent-up Utica. 

Five days and five nights have passed, and on our starboard 
bow appears the Castle of San Juan De Ulloa, which stands on a 
small island nearly a half mile from the main shore; the blue 
waves of the Atlantic surge against its base, and its open-mouthed 
artillery rests in position ready to belch forth their iron hail and 
mimic the thunders of Heaven. This castle was the last foothold 
that Spain possessed in Mexico; and through its strength and 
position she exacted tribute from all vessels entering the adja- 
cent harbor for nearly two years after the Mexicans had driven 
her from the mainland. ' 



VERA CRUZ. 367 

•In April, 15 19, Cortez landed his 628 men some thirty miles 
south of here, but that harbor being objectionable, he moved 
his camp near San Juan De UUoa, and laid off the town of Villa- 
rica de la Vera Cruz — the rich town of the true Cross — and built 
a rude fort, in which labor the native Mexicans aided him. 

The church spires of Vera Cruz are now visible; this was the 
first town laid off on the mainland of this continent: it was laid off 
88 years previous to our English fathers laying off Jamestown, 
Va., in May, 1607, and over 100 years previous to the pilgrim 
fathers landing at Plymouth in December, 1620. 

Yonder is the beach upon which Cortez drew up his ships, 
stripped off their rigging, and broke them to pieces, so as to cut 
off his own and his little army's retreat, he having resolved to 
conquer or perish. And from the site of yonder city, Cortez and 
his army, with 6000 Telescalan volunteers, marched in August, 
1 5 19, to conquer Montezuma. 

I now take my gripsack and step onto terra firma, after termi- 
nating my tenth voyage on or over the Gulf of Mexico in this 
latitude. 



Vera Cruz, April 23. 

What a motley population exists here — Portuguese, Spaniards, 
Mexicans, Aztecs, Peruvians, Brazilians, Africans, and Indians, 
with but very few Americans or English. The yellow fever has 
scattered them or sent them to the tomb. 

I find Vera Cruz a very busy commercial city, but the unhealth- 
ful climate retards its growth. It has a population of about 
twenty-two thousand, and is situated on the seashore, the town 
site resting some eight feet at the present time above the sea. 
The streets cross at right angles, and many of them drain their 
waters from the curbstones into the center of the street, and all 
streets are from six to ten inches below the sidewalks. Most of 
the business streets are curbed with good stone curbing, and are 
well paved with cobble-stone procured from the ocean beach. 
The sidewalks are narrow; from four to seven feet in width, and 



368 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

paved with dressed flagstone or water cement, which in this cli- 
mate makes a durable walk. 

The town site is quite flat, and affords but a slight descent for 
the water. The fact that no main or front building possesses 
any chimney attracts the attention of a Northerner; but as no 
fires are requisite in this climate no chimneys are erected except 
for kitchens, and not one-third of the dwellings have any chim- 
neys at all; the cooking being done under a shed, or in the open 
air in the back yard. Almost the sole fuel used is charcoal, which 
is brought into the city in sacks by peddlers on the backs of mules 
and jacks — ^most generally the latter. A caravan of five is now 
passing my window. There are no wells here for drinking pur- 
poses as their waters are brackish, consequently the city, as well 
as the adjacent country, has to depend on rain or water brought 
through conductors for a distance of five miles into the city. 

All are interested in the commerce of the world. I visited the 
warehouses and shipping. I had no thought that Mexico was the 
coffee-producing country that she is. The evidence is here be- 
fore me, in the warehouses. An English ship has just cleared 
with 500 bags, and almost every European vessel carries off 
coffee. Our steamer on her last trip took 150 bags for Galves- 
ton. I find that the shipment of Mexican coffee from this port 
alone during the past ninety days was 1700 sacks. 

Although Mexico is a cotton-producing country, she does not 
supply her increasing spindles. Large quantities are brought 
here from Louisiana and Texas. We, this trip, brought in 150 
bales. I am surprised to find Vera Cruz such a cleanly city. In 
that respect it will compare with any of our cities; yet the yellow 
fever is raging here. The deaths are numerous. A well-known 
railroad man, C. E. Powers, has just been taken off, and the 
American consul is down with the disease. This is the first point 
on this continent at which the yellow fever appeared. History 
tells us that, in the year 1763, an African slaver entered this 
port with a cargo of slaves who had this disease, and since that 
time its presence is almost continually to be seen and felt. You 
may say there is great peril in coming here; peril may become an 



VERA CRUZ. 369 

acquaintance that we look for. The Arctic explorer who has 
passed through great hardship is always willing to return; he who 
suffered the loss of fingers and toes is resolved to return the first 
opportunity. 

Vera Cruz has three good hotels and many fine, substantial 
buildings, and finely decorated, but small, parks near the center 
of the city. I am quartered at the Hotel Veracluzano, an ancient 
Spanish structure. 

Our greenbacks, silver, and gold sell here for Mexican bills or 
silver, as you may select, at thirteen per cent, premium, and from 
this up to fifteen per cent, is the ruling rate. I have just sold 
greenbacks at thirteen per cent, advance. It is used to purchase 
goods and pay United States duties. 

Vera Cruz is lighted by gas and electric light. All vehicles 
carrying commodities are required to have wheels four inches 
broad. 

A distance from Davenport of two thousand miles southward 
is quite perceptible in the temperature, but during the past two 
days a north breeze has put the thermometer down to 90° to 94° 
in the shade. 

The country for a distance of twenty miles westward is sandy, 
stony, and quite barren; then comes fertility, and the coffee, 
sugar, as well as corn and other products. I see plows here with- 
out a single ounce of iron in their construction, Aztecs' ingenu- 
ity. All work is performed by the Aztecs or Indians, who 
receive fifty to sixty cents per day, and board and lodge 
themselves. Tobacco is a large and important crop. 

Yankee civilization has entered Vera Cruz and all Mexico, for 
here stands a sewing machine, and yonder passes a street car, 
and there we see an electric light, and the lengthy, shady walks 
of the Alameda and the young Arab peddling Spanish journals 
tell us of civilization. 

I now bid adieu to Vera Cruz and her spray-kissed coast, and 
take the cars for the city of Mexico. 



370 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

On the Rail, April 26. 

We have a platoon of soldiers and two officers put on board 
to protect us from robbers. Each train, both ways, carries a 
like guard. This railroad was completed in 1872 by English 
capital. The line is 263 miles in length, passing over the Sierra 
Madre Mountains, which have a mean altitude of 9000 feet above 
the sea. The Popocatepetl peak has an altitude of 17,700 feet, 
and the Orizaba an altitude of 17,200 feet. Upon the summits of 
those mountains rests a perpetual bed of snow and ice. All the 
ice used in Vera Cruz and the city of Mexico is procured from 
Orizaba by Indians, who cut the ice on the summit, and carry it 
down the mountains in sacks upon their backs. It is then trans- 
ported in cars or carts to cities or villages. It takes two days 
to make the journey up and down the mountain, the Indians 
sleeping on or near the summit in a blanket, with a brushwood 
fire. 

During the day the snow and ice melt some to freeze at night. 
The supply must forever remain inexhaustible. A grander scene 
cannot well be imagined than that witnessed on this mountain 
journey, in comparison to which the Alleghenies are really insig- 
nificant. There are sixteen tunnels on the line, none of exten- 
sive length. At many points the cars pass along or over vast 
chasms of many hundreds of feet in depth, and the trains appear 
to be merely clinging to the mountain side, from which position 
the farms down below appear like a patchwork bedspread, and at 
many points you have the clouds on your right and left, level 
with the cars. 

Those views brought to my mind the scenes from the summit 
of the Andes in my early days. 

The greatest elevation of the road is 8633 feet above the sea. 
Those elevations are taken from the railroad surveys and levels. 
At one point we rise 4700 feet in 25 miles. This road is con- 
sidered a masterpiece of engineering. Yankee engineers per- 
formed the work, and $27,000,000 was consumed in its con- 
struction. 

At an elevation of 7700 feet we strike a tract of tableland over 



ik>i= 



CITY OF MEXICO. 37 1 

50 miles in length, and in width beyond the vision, except here 
and there a small rising cone. This tract contains small villages 
and is in a good state of cultivation. This mountain plain has 
to me an abiding interest, for here over a half century past and 
gone, when very short of rations, I shot two large fowls similar 
to the prairie chicken; I was looking for fuel to cook them when 
I struck an Aztec adobe hut at the foot of a mountain spur. The 
Aztec madam had a good fire burning out in the air near a clear 
rivulet that gushed from the mountain side, and in a large net- 
work cradle swinging from a branch of a tree was a bright-eyed 
pappoose watching its mother's every motion. I proposed that 
the madam could cook the wild fowls on shares; she immediately 
accepted the proposition, and took one of the fowls, and, without 
removing the feathers, she tucked its head under its wing and 
pressed its legs close up to its body, and with a rawhide string 
wrapped around the chicken firmly, tied them in the position as 
placed; she then went to a clay bank a few yards from the house, 
where the water flowed, and mixed up some of the clay with water, 
and then laid it on a flat rock ledge and flattened out the clay like 
the crust of a large pie; on this crust she placed the chicken, and 
drew^ the crust from all sides over it, and closed up the edges; 
then the package looked just like a large earthen jug without 
any handle; she opened the live coals of the fire, placed the jug 
in the cavity, then replaced the hot coals and put the burning 
wood over them, and went to work to put her chicken in a jug. 

The kind aboriginal then took from a recess in a large rock 
and gave me two small clay images of ancient Aztec's art, and 
she truly told me that I, the possessor of those miniature deities, 
would never suffer for want of rations whilst I possessed them. 
I gave those miniature faces and forms to the Davenport 
Academy of Science, together with eight minie balls from oflf 
Georgia's Atlanta battlefield of the sixties; perhaps one or more 
slew its man. 

I went to work on my diary to note the cookery operation, and 
before I expected a result I was called to receive my chicken; it 
was hooked out of the fire with a forked stick and rolled toward 



*'!kMt,f!k- 



372 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

me; after letting it cool a few minutes, under the direction of the 
Aztec cook, I opened the jug by splitting it from end to end with 
a long lava knife like a dull corn-cutter; the jug crust took off all 
the feathers with it, clean and clear, but there is science in the 
act of preparing the crust to remove all the feathers; never did 
Sailor I partake of a more delicious dish than this wild chicken, 
and some cake, made from red corn pounded fine in a wooden 
mortar, for which I gave two bright* brass buttons from ofY my 
vest, for I was short of change; and I used as my table a rock of 
the Sierra Madre. 

Here on this extensive mountain bench of fertile land did Cor- 
tez, in 1520, find friends and food on his retreat from disaster at 
the City of Mexico, and here he received or pressed into his serv- 
ice Xlaxcalan aid to carry his military stores and the timber for 
his lake boats, with which he stormed and took the capital of the 
Aztecs. Cortez was indebted to those allies for his success and 
undving fame, as we are to the Tennessee and Kentucky mule 
for the preservation of the Union. Had it not been for the pres- 
ence and suggestion of the mule. General Sherman would never 
have thought of marching to the sea. 

Now the morning mists are rising to unveil the valleys, to 
present their beauties to us from our upper perch. Now church 
spires and convent towers of the mountain city of Queretaro 
appear in sight, pointing toward the clouds. The city stands 
6300 feet above the sea; this is one of Mexico's ancient, historic, 
and beautiful cities, with its Alameda and other parks, homes of 
idleness, yet breathing spots not incumbered by city walls. 

Here is erected a very extensive cotton factory, working about 
a thousand hands, all Aztecs and Mexicans, except four superin- 
tendents. The power is derived from a mountain stream, opera- 
ting on an overshot wheel forty-eight feet in diameter — one of 
the largest wheels in the world. Here on May 30, 1848, a peace 
treaty that closed the war between Mexico and the United States 
was ratified, and here the foreign invader, Maximilian, who 
through European power and impudence had been created an 
emperor to enslave the free republicans of Mexico, was attacked 



CITY OF MEXICO. 373 

by his armed subjects in May, 1867, a"<J i" a desperate and 
bloody engagement was defeated, taken prisoner, and with his 
generals Miramon and Mejian, was shot to death on June 19, 
1867. The rebel President Juarez, a pure Aztec, and the officials 
at Washington, were solicited but refused to interfere, and the 
European monarchs held aloof; they had gained knowledge from 
the Mexicans of their ability to defend themselves and their 
homes. The executed three found graves at Cerra de las Cam- 
panas, where they fell. 

I walked over the dreary road near three miles north of the 
city to a rough mountain spur, once fortified by breastworks, to 
the ground where the emperor and his generals met their doom; 
a befitting spot for such a deed. 

Emperor Maximilian's body in time was taken to his Austrian 
home for final interment; three common dark stones with the 
name of each victim on it, marked the spot where the trio lay; 
that of the emperor rests in the center, where he stood to receive 
his death. Those stones were placed there by European friends 
residing in Queretaro. 

Here in Mexico the donkeys and Indians make the country. 
In this vast mountain section the donkey and mule, mostly the 
donkey, carry all the agricultural products, lumber, railroad ties, 
and the water in Vera Cruz, and his master when on a journey. 
He is here, there, and everywhere, and respected by all. The 
mule does the plowing and teaming where a team can travel, and 
the Indian is the almost universal conductor. 

The railroad telegraph line has wrought-iron poles or supports, 
with cast-iron sockets. The height is generally about fifteen feet 
above ground. 

City of Mexico, April 27, 1884. 
Oh, my! Oh, my! This must be the birthplace of architect- 
ure, so many almost countless orders, shapes, and forms blended, 
and forming a bewildering grandeur that dazzles the vision and 
perplexes the imagination; grand, grand oddity — no beginning, 
no end, yet all harmony and perfection. 



374 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

The City of Mexico is locai:cd in an extensive valley on the 
mountain, 7500 feet above the sea. It has a population of 280,- 
000. In fifteen hours' journey I have seen and felt summer's 
heat at Vera Cruz, the winter's chill midway upon the mountain, 
and here a pleasant spring, where the thermometer ranges from 
50° to 75° the year around. The nights, though not cold, affect 
me and others; time might make a change. The city stands high 
and near the vast refrigerators of the mountain, which after the 
warm sun retires send down their gentle icehouse chill. From 
my hotel Iturbide I can see the summit of Popocatepetl; it is 
volcanic, but has lain inactive for over a century. The city has 
gas and electric light, and is supplied with water from distant 
streams, which is conducted into small reservoirs in all parts of 
the city and carried thence to consumers in large earthen 
pitchers and jugs, by licensed water-carriers. The population of 
Mexico is something over 1 1 ,400,000. 

If all history and all the inhabitants of this city wxre blotted 
out of existence, its rise, progress, and then its decline and evi- 
dence of imbecility, could be seen in its architecture. 

Within the central portions of the city we see churches, hotels, 
and dwellings with massive walls, towering columns, expansive 
arches, and grand galleries; the outer walls a wonder of chaste and 
ornamental designs. This is the exhibit previous to the present 
century. As the city extended during this century, a falling of? 
in grandeur of design as well as in comfort is plainly visible — a 
falling ofif that is indelible. To give a proper description of the 
ancient edifices here is impossible. The modern can be de- 
scribed. I will make mention of the Iturbide (Etabeda) Hotel 
where I sojourn. This hotel was built 112 years ago, and has 
yet a life of 200 more. It has two inside courts, one 50 feet by 
60, and the other 70 by 30, with 730 running feet of stone-paved 
galleries. The ornamental front is four stories in height with 
galleries. The inside stairs and platforms are of heavy stone 
on up to the upper story. Large columns support the main 
court galleries. The main building has 140 large rooms 
above ^he ground floor, and the connecting extensions 



CITY OF MEXICO, 375 

contain 40 more. The main entrance is 18 feet wide by 
25 in height. 

The city has 35 churches. The most noted is the cathedral; 
it is over 300 years old, and is good for 300 more. It is said to 
have cost, when labor was cheap, $1,700,000. Its lofty arched 
ceilings are supported by a vast number of massive clustered 
columns. I have visited the churches of almost every Eastern 
and Southern city, and also of three foreign countries, and this 
of three centuries back eclipses them all. It faces the Plaza, 
which contains about three acres of highly ornamental grounds, 
with fountains and well-cared-for walks. The outer sidewalk 
around this park is laid or paved with light and dark marble 
slabs. 

In 1607 the then province of Mexico accomplished one of the 
greatest undertakings of that century. This city was then sub- 
ject to inundations from the waters of Lake Zamhango and Rio 
Guantitlan, to prevent which the course of that river was diverted 
out of the valley. This required a vast cut from no to 370 feet 
wide, and 90 up to 300 feet in depth on the first section, of 13 
miles in length. This was 13 years previous to our Pilgrim 
Fathers' landing at Plymouth. The second section of the canal 
to Lake San Cristobal was found to be necessary, and was com- 
pleted in 1783. When compared with this stupendous work our 
Hennepin Canal will be a mere street gutter, except in length. 

Over a century since an earthquake changed the surface of the 
earth near the lakes, and left the canal dry except at very high 
floods. This canal is known as the drain of Huchuetoca. 

I have just visited one of the two city aqueducts which con- 
duct the water to the city. This one is now 304 years old. It 
is raised about 13 feet above the streets. The portion within the 
city rests on 880 stone arches; its length is 10 miles. The two 
combined have 1500 arches. 

The premium of 15 per cent, on United States greenbacks, 
silver, and gold has dropped down to I2| per cent. I sold our 
silver dollars at those figures for Mexican dollars. 

I attended service within the cathedral. The services in Span- 



37^ A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

ish possessed a grand solemnity; a zeal and reverence that is 
calculated to carry the mind upwards toward a better world. No 
illusion clusters here, but unfeigned prayers and chants were 
offered up to the great Supreme, which called to my mind the 
vast work performed by the missionary priests; not alone a work 
of religion, but of civilization, embracing every country, every 
island, to the remotest corner of the earth. Here, in centuries 
past, the native Aztecs assembled to commune with an unseen 
God. My thoughts rush back to the seventh and eighth cen- 
turies, when the rulers of England, France, and Germany, 
through their ministers of state or personally, appeared at the 
monasteries to beseech the learned monks and friars to come to 
their countries, and within their colleges instruct their ministers 
of state and their youths. They came, and civilization and in- 
telligence followed their work. Without the records of those 
ancient monks and friars the history of many countries would 
have been entirely unkilown. 

Here before us stands the palace wherein sojourned the un- 
fortunate Emperor Maximilian, who lost his life through Euro- 
pean greed and insolence; we are granted permission to enter the 
halls once presided over by the heart-broken Empress Carlotta, 
the daughter of the King of the Belgians, and in whose palace 
poor Carlotta was confined, being a lunatic. Tlie day previous 
to Maximilian's death at Oueretaro, by decree of a court-martial, 
he wrote the following letter to poor Carlotta: 

" To My Beloved Carlotta: 

'* If God ever permits you to recover and read these lines, you 
will learn the cruelty of the fate which has not ceased to pursue 
me since your departure for Europe. You carried with you my 
soul and my happiness. Why did I not listen to you? So many 
events, alas! so many unexpected and unmerited catastrophes 
have overwhelmed me, that I have no more hope in my heart, 
and I await death as a delivering angel. I die without .agony. I 
shall fall with glory like a soldier, like a conquered king. If you 
have not the power to bear so much suffering, if God soon re- 



CITY OF MEXICO. 377 

unites us, I shall bless the divine and paternal hand which has 
so rudely stricken us. Adieu ! Adieu ! Thy poor 

" Max." 

Yes, poor Max, yet more poor Carlotta. 

As is well known to all of that day, Ferdinand Maximilian, 
Archduke of Austria, was but a tool of Napoleon III., to cheaply 
make for Napoleon a name of fame and greatness by establishing 
a monarchy in the Western republican world. 

Maximilian was the second son of the Archduke Francis 
Charles of Austria, and was in his thirty-second year of age when 
crowned Emperor of Mexico. He was born in Austria in 1832, 
and during several years of his young manhood he served in the 
Austrian Navy, as a sailor, sailing master, and commander, and 
was noted as a very efficient officer. 

He was married at Brussels in 1857 to the Princess Carlotta, 
the only daughter of Leopold I. of Belgium, who was opposed to 
his accepting a Mexican throne. He was crowned in April, 1864, 
upon which he renounced all his rights to the throne of Austria. 

Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlotta landed at Vera 
Cruz from ofif an Austrian frigate, which was escorted by a 
French man-of-war, on the 29th of May, 1864, and arrived at the 
City of Mexico on June 12, but disaster and death, through the 
decree of a military court-martial, soon followed, as acts baneful 
to the once-free Mexicans were forced upon them by a foreign 
hand. The fire of republican liberty had not been quenched in 
Mexico. 

Sailor I, who at that day kept a diary, recorded all of Maxi- 
milian's imperial acts, from their incipiency to the firing of the 
gun at Cerra de las Campanas that sent him to eternity, as 
thoughtless and lacking the energy and resolution that an exalted 
station demanded. 

The key of success in all things is thought, preparation, and 
resolution. This key was first used by the great Jehovah in 
setting out to create this vast and wonderful world. 

Now, in 1897, thirty-three years have passed and gone since I 



378 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

recorded the landing of the Emperor and Empress at Vera Cruz, 
and the unfortunate Carlotta has not met her " Max " in Paradise, 
but now Hves within her Belgium. 

Mexico's domain contains 764,300 square miles, divided into 
twenty-seven states and two territories, with a population of 
about 11,480,000. 

I recorded from my diary some of Mexico's early Presidents; 
I will here record those of later years, together with the date of 
their election: General Comonfort, elected in 1857; Don Benito 
Juarez, 1858; Don Sebastian Lerdo, 1872; General Porfirio Diaz, 
1876; General Diaz, 1878; General Gonzalez, 1881 ; General Diaz, 
1888, and twice elected in succession since that date. He is con- 
sidered to be one of Mexico's best and wisest presidents. Presi- 
dent Juarez was of Indian parentage, of unmixed blood, and a 
man of talent and bravery. 

My object in Mexico wa^ to procure not less than fifty thou- 
sand soldiers by permission of the Mexican authorities, to invade 
and give freedom to the people of an island ; at that day fifty thou- 
sand brave men could have been procured for a good cause, but 
consent to muster them in and ship them from a Mexican port 
could not. Respecting the mustering in of troops, I called on 
the United States Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraor- 
dinary, Philip H. Morgan, who with emphasis and energy advised 
me to abandon the military operation and return to the States, 
and escape being shot down. 

THE TWO REPUBLICS. 

A journal of the City of Mexico, dated April 29, 1884, which is 
now before me, says: "A. C. Fulton of Davenport, la., is at the 
Iturbide; he will remain a week in the city. He comes to see 
President Gonzalez about some personal matters." I was plainly 
asked by the energetic reporter my business with Mexico's 
President, and I truly told him some personal matters. 

We will now bid adieu to the City of Mexico, and set out on 
the long journey to El Paso, Tex., and from thence drop down 



BATTLEFIELDS OF TEXAS. 379 

to San Antonio, to visit the old battlegrounds of 1835 and 1836; 
thence northwest through New Mexico to climb the steeps of the 
Rocky Mountains, then homeward bound through Kansas. 



TEXAS INDEPENDENCE. 

The First Battle of the Lone Star State. 

We are here on the '' Lone Star's " first battleground, the bat- 
tle of the Mission, on the banks of San Antonio River. Here 
on the morning of the 28th day of October, 1835, ^ reconnoiter- 
ing column of the Texan army, numbering 94 men, was sur- 
rounded by a detachment of 450 Mexican cavalry and infantry, 
with one brass 6-pounder. 

The same sloping bank of the river that then formed 
a breastwork, from which the Texans sent forth with 
unerring aim their deadly missiles, still remains. And 
there before us is the open plain where fell in death 
60 Mexicans; be3^ond, upon the rising ground lay over 
40 of their wounded, and above me, near the river, stood 
the captured cannon, with the lifeless bodies of 14 gunners lying 
around it. And here upon the river's grassy bank, side by side, 
I find two slight elevations of the surface of the earth — they must 
indicate the grares of Wilson and Anderson, who were the only 
Texans slain that day, the day on which the Texans gained their 
first victory by defeating and causing the Mexicans to seek shel- 
ter with the main army under General Cos, within the Alamo, to 
soon be there attacked and driven south of the Rio Grande. 

Yonder stands the Mission of the Immaculate Conception, 
from which this battle received its name. Within its massive 
walls chants and prayers were once offered up to the great Su- 
preme, and the uncivilized Caddo and Camanche bowed his head 
before the holy Cross, and received instructions and the blessing 
of the missionary priest more than a century and a half now past, 
but time and vandal hands have marred the structure, and no 
chant or prayer is heard — all is quiet and still as darkness. 



380 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Where are the many actors of 1835? I have searched, adver- 
tised, but not a sign of one is to be found. Can it be possil^le that 
of the many thousands I alone remain? The very thought makes 
me feel sad and lonely. The final fate of many is known. Sev- 
eral hundred fell during the victorious campaign of 1835, and 
over 150 met their death in an abortive attempt to capture the 
Mexican city of Matamoras, in February, 1836; 170 that garri- 
soned the Alamo were massacred by Santa Anna, March 6, 1836. 
On the 27th of the same month over 400 quartered at Goliad, who, 
after surrendering under stipulations, were massacred by Gen- 
eral Urrea. On April 21, 1836, at the triumphant and final bat- 
tle of San Jacinto, many fell. In 1841 over 200 of the remnant 
of those United States volunteers, in connection with Texans, 
in all numbering 335 men, formed an expedition for the subju- 
gation of New IMexico. They lost many of their number through 
privation in the mountains, and were finally betrayed and cap- 
tured at San Miguel, by Armijo, Governor of New Mexico, and 
many put to death. 

Of the many hundreds thus slain, over three-fourths were vol- 
unteers from the United States, to whom due credit has never 
been given. There is not a shadow of doubt but that the United 
States Volunteers procured the independence of Texas; to ac- 
complish which they suffered every privation and hardship 
through hunger and thirst, through sickness and painful death. 
No commissary stores followed their marches, no skilled sur- 
geons or hospital nurses administered to their wants; the earth 
was their couch, and Heaven's broad arch their canopy. But 
who in time reaped the harvest from this flow of blood, from the 
pains and moans, and the dying" prayers of these young men? It 
was the United States! She first garnered the Lone Star Re- 
public through annexation, which led her to the possession of the 
Golden Mountains and the fertile plains of the Pacific slope, with 
a territorial area of one million square miles, and an ocean front- 
age sufficient to girth an empire. Who bestowed this gift if it 
was not those volunteers? 

We now bid adieu to the Lone Star's Lexington to visit Santa 



BATTLEFIELDS OF TEXAS. 381 

Anna's Waterloo at San Jacinto, but we must not further trouble 
a new and uninterested world with even momentous and thrilling 
occurrences of the long past, the results of which shaped the des- 
tiny of this American nation. 

Forty-eight hours have passed, and we are now on San Jacin- 
to's battlefield; here upon this vantage ground did General 
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, on the 20th of April, 1836, on 
sighting General Houston's forces, throw up parallelogram in- 
trenchments, as the roughened ground now indicates; here are 
charred wood coals mixed with the earth, a reminder of the camp 
fires, and here, at the most distant rear from the Texan forces, 
are small pieces of broken wine bottles; this must have been the 
location of the officers' headquarters, and yonder they lariated 
their cavalry horses on the night of the 20th, for, on the morning 
of April 21, 1836, amidst the war cry of " Remember the Alamo 
and Goliad," the Texans, aided by Sherman and Burleson, made 
a charge of desperation on twice their number within the breast- 
works with set bayonets, sheath and bowie knives, and left over 
600 Mexicans cold in death; and upon yonder eminence was 
planted the staff upon which waved the Lone Star flag of inde- 
pendence. 

Look here at this dark earth, and within the scope I have 
pointed out to you rank vegetation draws a line; it must be en- 
riched by human blood. Let us depart ; the scene is not a pleas- 
ant one, and we have a dense and lonely wood to pass through; 
specters may appear. Now we go on to Spring Creek, Anahuac, 
and the once Alcaide's home. 

We now pass from ofif the Rocky Mountains range down to 
and over the alkali plains to the Indians' unstable reservations, 
to find my once friends. Not one of early days in sight; all are 
beneath the surface of the earth, and their offspring complain- 
ing bitterly of the white man's wrong and injustice to them, as 
to their departed ancestors. No people ever created have, or are 
they capable to tell and picture their rights or their wrongs and 
injuries in heart-feeling and soul-stirring words as can and does 
the American Indian orator, and most all American Indians are 



382 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

orators. Those Indians of the reservations this day have cause 
for complaint; unbiased history exhibits in plain capitals the fact 
that the white man's prejudice has ever existed toward the dark 
complexion. Deny it who dare, and exhibit your ignorance! 

Now, in 1896, Congressman Dawes and his commission pro- 
pose to grossly wrong and injure the red man, to benefit the 
white; this would be the proper heading for the Dawes bill in 
Congress; no other would truthfully explain its substance and 
intent. Mr. Dawes, his commissioners, and Congress, if com- 
petent to fill the stations that they have possession of, should 
know that this Government, under its seal of authority, had sol- 
emnly pledged itself to maintain the several Indian tribes in 
peaceful and unmolested possession of their Western reserva- 
tions, upon which they were placed by force, not by choice. Not 
a pledge of the possession of lands alone, but a more sacred 
pledge, that of independence and self-government, together with 
their ancient rights and usages uninterrupted by intruding whites 
within their limited territory, which they in reality inherited from 
their fathers, not from the American Congress, to be used at 
pleasure as a shuttlecock. 

President Cleveland and Congress, if posted in law and in 
modern history, know, or should know, the Government's acts 
and pledges to those thrice-wronged Indians. 

The archives at Washington witness that, in 1817, the Chero- 
kees at the bayonet's demand traded Alabama and Tennessee 
lands for lands in Arkansas. This trade and treaty, written by a 
white man, says that the Indians are guaranteed, and will for- 
ever be protected in the undisturbed possession of their Arkansas 
lands, as bordered and defined. In 1828, by contract, further 
lands by metes and bounds were secured to the Indians under 
treaty, which plainly says " perpetual ownership." 

In 1838 the lands known as the Indian Territory, and the home 
of the Five Indian Tribes, for which a patent was issued to the 
tribes through the land office in regular form, were, says the 
agreements and stipulations contained in the giving and grant- 
ing the 14,374,135 acres, to have and to hold the same, together 



INDIAN TERRITORY. 383 

with all the rights, privileges, and appurtenances thereto be- 
longing forever. 

''In testimony whereof, I, Martin Van Buren, President of the 
United States of America, have caused those letters to be made 
patent and the seal of the General Land Office to be hereunto 
affixed; given under my hand at the city of Washington on the 
thirty-first day of December, one thousand eight hundred and 
thirty-eight, and of the independence of the United States, the 
sixty-third. 

" Martin Van Buren." 

All treaties with those Indians contained a most solemn pledge 
and guarantee of self-government, and this oft-repeated clause 
and pledge was re-affirmed as late as 1866. 

Congress as an excuse for annulling sales, and violating solemn 
pledges and treaties, says that the Indians have done some shoot- 
ing at each other. My feeling tells me that we whites, between 
the years i860 and 1865 did some shooting at each other; a strife 
in which we surged through a tide of human blood, and as an 
additional excuse for the wrong and robbery for the benefit of 
speculators and renegades, Congress publishes that there are 
redskin Jay Goulds, Astors, Vanderbilts, and Rothschilds within 
the Indian tribes, that require regulation. Yes, and they also 
have within their territory a larger number of profound speakers 
and writers per capita than has any nation of whites on the globe, 
America not excepted. They know and say, and have published 
in their journals that they have been driven far westward, and 
now their liberty and their last homes are wanted to make room 
east of them for foreign hordes and clans; that, far better would 
it have been for America's future if the wolves should have 
howled and the autumn fires have swept over the prairies for a 
century yet to come, than that unappreciating foreign hordes and 
clans should be the possessors of the Indians' and the coming 
Americans' inheritance. 

To the credit of a majority of the Southern members of Con- 



3^4 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

gress, be it said that they have ever opposed opening up and 
bestowing the public domain to foreigners. As all well know, 
they have ever claimed it to be the rightful inheritance of the 
coming Americans. 

Thousands of wise and far-seeing Americans have fondly hoped 
for preservation; but time has shown those hopes to be hope 
deluded. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND DURING A LIFe's VOYAGE TRY- 
ING ORDEAL — Hawaii's early history and struggle for 

EXISTENCE. 

'T'O perfect a life's voyage, it is necessary to drop back to sailor 
and Territorial days, and couple early occurrences with a 
later period. 

In the first days of 1843 I was to journey from Quasqueton 
to Davenport. I was in command of two rugged horses and a 
self-made cutter. I concluded to visit a camp of the Sac and 
Fox Indians, who, with some of their adherents, the Pottawat- 
tomies, were camped west of the Indian line of 1837, and not far 
distant from Quasqueton, and purchase someof their winter catch 
of furs, and also gain from the Indians the correct location of a 
vast waterfall that several Indians had told me existed, and re- 
quired no work to create it, as at Quasqueton. I purchased some 
furs, but found the waterfall to be west by north some seven 
days' journey in the Indian district, and the day of wheat-raising 
in this vicinity was distant. The waterfall was then out of reach; 
I some years later found this to be Sioux Falls. 

Whilst at the Indian camp, some Indians were preparing to 
feed their horses by cutting down some maple and cottonwood 
trees of some twelve to fifteen inches in diameter, so that the 
horses could browse on the bark and the top branches. The 
horses were a full half mile from the creek timber, picking the 
tops off the weeds and tufts of grass that stood above the snow, 
but the moment the first tree crashed down onto the ground, the 
whole bunch of some thirty horses scudded off in the right di- 
rection to browse upon the fallen trees. They, from long ex- 
perience, knew the cause of the crash, and taught them the com- 
pass course to steer to find their feed. Place a wagon load of 

385 



3^6 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

corn before those hungry Indian horses, or before a Texas steer, 
and they would no more think of eating it than they would a 
load of broken flint rock, but would starve to death whilst they 
tramped it into the earth beneath their feet. 

I set out about midday from the friendly Indian camp, where 
I had been well treated, with the design of quartering during the 
coming night at a white settlement in a grove of timber south of 
the Indian line, which settlement was an easy half day's journey. 
I had left the camp about one mile, and was passing by a dim 
road through a thicket, when two Indians, with the agility of 
antelopes, sprang from a cluster of bushes; the younger Indian 
of the two seized and stopped my horses, and the elder, who 
appeared to be some fifty years of age, full six feet in height, and 
who was as lean and hungry-looking as the Cassius whom Caesar 
feared — this Indian rushed toward me, crying, '' Whisky, 
whisky!" I drew from the locker an old flintlock navy pistol 
and ordered him to stand back; at the same instant the third 
Indian leaped from the opposite side of my track, and motioned 
me to not shoot, and pushed the tall and lean Indian back from 
me, and ordered the younger Indian, who was attempting in a 
very awkward manner to remove the harness from my horse, to 
desist, and he was obeyed. He informed me that he was the 
medicine man of the tribes; that he knew that those two Indians 
would waylay me and take my horses; that they would not injure 
me, but would set me adrift; that they wanted the horses to eat, as 
they were in good order; he had followed them to prevent the act. 

The medicine man was born and brought up on the seacoast 
of Georgia, and was a bright, shrewd man; on this merit he was 
adopted by the Sacs and Foxes as their medicine man in 1839. 
He was well known by many of the early white settlers of Illi- 
nois and Iowa. His name was Montongo (Flying Fish) ; and the 
tall Indian who wanted whisky to drink and my horses to eat, 
was the well-known deposed chief Tokonowinso (The Arrow of 
the Rainbow). He was deposed as drunken and worthless, and 
he knew from experience that many of the Western frontier men 
carried whisky with them, and some of them sold it to the In- 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 387 

dians. I felt very thankful for the watchfulness and timely aid 
of the medicine man, Flying Fish. 

My misfortune and trouble had not ceased, but had just be- 
gun, and I mentally said, " Can it be true that it was decreed that 
Sailor I was to pass through a life replete with stirring incidents, 
and more than romantic adventure?" But a few hours had 
passed when snow began to fall; it soon checked up and bitter 
cold set in; night came on, and all traces of roads were obliter- 
ated by the snow, and I was on a vast ocean of bleak prairie, loca- 
tion and distance from any habitation unknown, for a very few 
existed, some twenty to thirty miles asunder. No food, no shel- 
ter for horses or self; the horses had the advantage of one feed of 
oats when I had no food, and sorry was I that I could not give 
them more, with shelter. 

The first night passed without a star to guide my course; the 
morning came, but brought no hope to me; the second night set 
in with utter darkness surrounding me; the coming second day 
exhibited no habitation; a vast snow-clad plain extended in every 
quarter. The third dismal night rushed upon me, with a far be- 
low zero coldness. 

We have in Davenport a historical journal, the "Democrat," 
whose editor, Mr. Dick Richardson, would prefer to use up a day 
in tracing a historical fact than to go a-fishing with President 
Cleveland. Mr. Richardson made the long journey to Egypt to 
see the pyramids that my African deity, Buso, erected. 

The " Democrat " of November 12, 1893, publishes as follows, 
which explains all: 

" SAVED BY A CANDLE A TALE OF PIONEER DAYS IN IOWA. 



''A. C. Fulton Recalls Some Fine Autumns in This State, and With 
Them Some Severe- Winters — Hozu He zvas Lost and Nearly 
Frozen in '^j. 

" These fine autumnal days, that act on the man who has health 
to be out in the air and enjoy them as does old wine, revive in 



388 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

the mind of A. C. Fulton recollections of some of the falls the 
people of this State used to have when the prairies were scarcely 
broken, and when this seemed to all men to be the promised land. 
In those times, about half a century ago, Davenport, a small but 
lively and somewhat pretentious frontier town, was noted up and 
down the Mississippi River, and from east to west, as a health 
resort. People came here from St. Louis and New Orleans and 
Cincinnati, and other Eastern and Southern cities, as has often 
been told, and the old Le Claire House was filled with guests who 
had plenty of wealth to scatter in the chase for health. Daven- 
port is just as good and true and beautiful and healthful now as 
she was then; but she is not new any more, and the charm of 
novelty has been assumed by the lake and mountain resorts 
far beyond her. The autumn weather now may be just as lovely 
as it was then, when these pioneers were young, but those days 
are numbered by them with the other blessings which have 
brightened as they have taken flight, and they seem, somehow, to 
have been better than these latter days, whether they were or not. 

*' But the weather in those times was not all good. There were 
some phenomenal spurts of fine weather, as, for example, the 
winter of 1853-54, when farmers plowed all through December, 
and some of them through January, and when the grass was to be 
found green and fit for grazing all the season through, but there 
were some other winters that were rougher, the old settlers think, 
than any we of these days have to show. 

" The winter of 1842, for example, is referred to by Mr. Ful- 
ton as something awful. November 16 the river here closed, 
crushing two or three steamboats that had taken refuge at this 
point, and sinking one of them on the Rock Island shore. On 
the iSth of the month, two days later, Mr. Fulton crossed at this 
point on the ice, and the bridge that carried him over then held 
fast to its abutments till late into the spring, and between the 
closing and the breaking up of the river was included some of the 
roughest, rockiest, and most grievous winter weather that this 
part of the country ever saw. Unfortunately there was no 
weather bureau station here then, and we have no records by 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 389 

which to compare it all the way through. In their absence the 
statements of the pioneers are good enough. 

'* Mr. Fulton recalls one experience of the winter of '42 that 
still makes him shiver and want a heavier coat whenever he thinks 
of it. He can bring on a chill in midsummer by reviving its 
memories. 

" On this memorable occasion he was driving across the un- 
marked prairies of interior Iowa in a cutter, drawn by a team of 
horses. He was out in the neighborhood of Independence, and 
had gone there to look up practicable water powers, with the idea 
of building a mill somewhere in that neighborhood, for the local 
manufacture of the wheat that was then so plentifully grown by 
the few farmers who had opened farms in that region. He was 
on his way home, on Sunday, February 26, following an un- 
marked course toward his next stopping point, for there were no 
roads out there then. A snowstorm came on. The term bliz- 
zard had not then been given to such phenomena by the Dakota 
sufferers, but this was a blizzard of undoubted authority and 
genuineness. The snow came whirling down as it can do in such 
a storm, hurried along by Arctic blasts that were enough to 
pierce the thickest overcoat and overcome the stoutest heart. In 
a little while the horizon line was lost. Earth could not be told 
from sky. Direction was undistinguishable. The instinct of 
the horses was as much baffled as the skill of their driver. They 
were lost on the prairie. 

'' Mr. Fulton says he was clad then about as he is now in his 
comings and goings in this fine fall weather, which is to say that 
while he was clothed for comfort at this time of the year he was 
in fine trim for an early death by freezing in such a storm. He 
had a buffalo robe, and it was about all the protection he had that 
was worth naming. It was useless to stand still. There was no 
refuge within many miles, and it was hardly to be hoped that man 
or team could live to reach it; but the horses plodded on, while 
the storm held on and the snow whirled past them. 

" The day passed into the night, and still they made their way 
ahead, the direction of the wind being their only guide. They 



390 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

could be sure that it was from the northwest, and they held it 
to their backs and made tracks as fast as they could toward the 
comforts of civilization. Morning came and still the storm held. 
All through Monday, the horses, unfed and unwatered and un- 
rested, held their way. The man in the sleigh was so stiffened 
in his buffalo robe wrappings that he could not have cared for 
them if he had found a place to alight. Monday night came on, 
and with it no sign of shelter. Monday night passed and Tues- 
day morning dawned, and still the cold was intense, and there 
was no trace of human habitation or possible place of refuge. 
Tuesday dragged its slow length along, but by this time, tiresome 
and torturing as they were, the hours did not move slower than 
the worn-out horses. They had almost reached the limit of their 
endurance and strength, but they moved forward at a pace com- 
pared with which the gait of the average funeral train would have 
seemed a welcome burst of speed. It could barely be called 
motion. 

" It was with feelings of the deepest despair that Mr. Fulton 
saw the light begin to fade on Tuesday afternoon. The situation 
was as hopeless then as it had been before, save for the fact that 
the homes of settlers were a good many miles nearer, but with 
his fagged team a mile might mean death. Rescue could not 
be much longer delayed if it was to be worth accepting. In a 
short time the end would surely come. Cold and hunger were 
doing their work. The frozen fingers and the well-nigh frozen 
arms could no longer guide the tottering steps of the poor half- 
dead animals, and they moved, what little they did move, with- 
out a master's hand. And in this hopeless, pitiless condition the 
miserable party of two horses and their master were as night 
again settled over the white prairies, so black with the abandon- 
ment of hope that it was no longer worth while to think of living. 

" If the reader can bring himself to imagine this case fully and 
completely, he may be able to understand what a tumult of emo- 
tions were aroused in Mr. Fulton's breast when he caught — for a 
faint, flickering instant — the dimmest kind of a gleam of light 
through the blackness which rimmed the horizon. It was just 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 391 

a glint that was speedily extinguished, and it was too faint and 
far away to found hope upon; but it shone again, and clearer. 
That light meant warmth and food and life, with all that life 
means; but it was so far away, so dim and distant, and the half- 
dead team was so near its last strained effort that it also meant 
the saddest of all deaths — death within sight of escape and safety. 

" The horses were turned toward that star of hope, and they 
dragged, dragged themselves forward, soslowly and painfully that 
they seemed to stand still. The hours had been long with monoto- 
nous despair before, but now they were long with the agony of 
fear that the way of escape would be barred at the last steps of 
the retreat. But the horses were still alive, though barely so, 
and barely able to move, and they did make progress, though it 
was so slow and distressful. Little by little the light grew 
plainer. What if it should go out? It had been hours since dark 
fell, and the settlers were all men of steady habits, who went early 
to bed. What could keep this particular light burning, and how 
soon might it disappear and leave the wanderer in darkness to 
miss the window from which it shone? 

" But it burned on, and after a while it was near enough to 
show the window panes from which its faint rays were filtered 
through the rime of frost, and in time the perishing party drew 
up at the door of Farmer McLoughlin's humble settler's shanty. 
A shout called him out, and the storm was robbed of its prey. 

" Mr. Fulton was unable to walk. His feet and legs, and his 
hands and arms, and face and ears, were frozen. He was carried 
into the house. Both feet were planted in one bucket of ice-cold 
snow water, and both arms in another, while wet applications of 
pulped raw onions were laid upon his face and ears. The frost 
was drawn with these homely remedies, and amputations and per- 
haps death was averted. The poor horses escaped death by freez- 
ing, but though all possible care was given them, out of gratitude 
for their heroic effort, they died in a little while, and as long as 
they lived had bare existence. They never had the spirit of 
horses after that three-days' pull, from Sunday morning till Tues- 
day night at midnight. 



392 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

'* It was a rare chance that placed that candle beacon in Farmer 
McLoughlin's window. He had killed a beef animal that Tues- 
day, and that evening he was seized by an unusual fit of industry, 
and resolved, without any special reason for the resolve except 
a mere whim, to cut up the carcass and salt down the meat before 
he quit work that night. The rest of the family retired, but he 
worked on. The candle stood on the table in front of the win- 
dow, and it reached out over the prairie far enough to catch the 
frosty eyes of the man in the cutter and guide him home. 

" During that cold snap, one of the severest of the winter, the 
mercury in this city, quite a distance southward of the place where 
this wandering occurred, registered between 25° and 28° below 
zero. It was a wonder that there were eyes left to see that can- 
dle's light." 

The light and shelter that I found was the one-roomed log 
house of Mr. James Lauglrey in a then unnamed grove, where I 
and my horses received every kindness that could be given. 
When told by Mrs. Lauglrey that the grove of timber was wait- 
ing for a name, I proposed, as the raw pounded-up onions, taken 
from a pit beneath the room floor, relieved my frosted face and 
ears, that it be given the name of Onion Grove, and all exclaimed 
Amen! I lately wrote to Onion Grove Post Olftce, Cedar 
County, Iowa, to be informed that the good Lauglrey family was 
extinct, and that the patriot Lauglrey was entombed on his once 
farm within Onion Grove. 

The good reader may say, '* Very severe on the sailor." I 
have to say that the want of food was no hardship at all, for I 
had a more protracted experience in bygone days, where others 
suffered unto death. True, a young man perished from the cold 
not far distant from me on my first night out on the prairie; no 
wonder he perished, for Davenport's two thermometers on that 
night marked 25° below zero. 

Fatalities at sea are constant, so much so that a poor sailor 
being cast away and suffering death through starvation and ex- 
posure is an occurrence that does but attract momentary atten- 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 393 

tion, to be forgotten by the well-fed reader before he places him- 
self upon his downy couch, to dream of ease and wealth and the 
coming luxury of the morrow. 

Speaking of the sailor's frequent hardships, distress, and death, 
I now plainly see before me a noble ship, the '' Salem," that sailed 
in the thirties on the wade Pacific Ocean, to become in a very 
leaky condition from constant storms and tempests, creating 
rough seas; her officers and crew, numbering eighteen, all worn 
down by constant duty and working at the pumps to keep the ship 
afloat. Her cargo shifts, she fills, and with a lurch goes to the 
bottom, carrying down all of her officers and one-half of her sail- 
ors, and a few bubbles rising to the surface were the only evidence 
of her once existence; the two boats had been partially prepared 
for the disaster, and were manned by all who could succeed in 
getting on board, or that could be picked up from the waves ; but 
the large boat soon followed the ship to the ocean's bottom. The 
boat was overloaded with lashed-down earthen jugs of water and 
packages of ship stores. The small unprovisioned boat rode 
upon the boisterous waves in solitude, and its three young sailors 
passed days and nights more numerous than I passed on the open 
prairie. Hunger, thirst, and exhaustion reduced their flesh and 
aflfected their vitality. In their distress and hunger two of the 
three young men ate of the poisonous sargasso of the ocean. 
Sailor I withstood the inviting temptation, although I had for 
days, with longing stomach and glaring eyes, looked upon the 
sea-gull and the monsters of the deep. The sargasso of the ocean 
was fast blotting out the remnant of the two young men's vitality, 
when, at the break of day after the fourth night's lonely voyage, 
working westward, as I supposed and endeavored to do, land 
appeared over our starboard bow. I followed the tortuous beach 
until I struck a cove that ofifered shelter; then came the task of 
landing my sick and helpless companions, and placing them in 
the shade of our unshipped sail; then followed the momentous 
question of food and water; no sign of life appeared upon the 
shore. Some ducks were floating and swimming on the water of 
the cove, and came very near to us without any indication of fear. 



394 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

I very soon made a lucky find, many ducks' and sea fowls' eggs, 
which I immediately gave to my sick and poisoned companions,, 
knowing raw eggs to be an antidote of most all poisons. Water 
was the next essential article to procure, but we possessed no 
vessel to transport a single ounce, if it could be found, but on ex- 
amining the beach I found a number of tortoise and other shells 
that water could be conveyed in by using care. I set out on a 
slow walk to procure water for the sick and self, and at the base 
of a high hill, near one mile from our quarters, I found a small 
lake or basin, with a trickling rivulet from the heights above, of 
very good water, and drank of it full as much as was prudent; 
then filled a shell which contained more than the sick should use 
during that day, and all that I could carry in my weak condition, 
but when I reached the camp I found both the young men declin- 
ing rapidly, and they desired very little water, and both expired 
during the night, and on the morrow I gave my unfortunate com- 
panions shallow graves upon the ocean-washed beach of that un- 
inhabited and desolate island. No mother's prayers or sister's 
tears were there, yet an unfeigned supplication was ofifered up to 
the great Supreme, and each morning and evening I placed sea- 
shells and stones upon the shallow graves, where the waves of 
ages will surge and roll their funeral dirge. 

There was no lack of animal life on the island, and on the 
shore borders sea tortoises and shellfish were plentiful, and birds, 
waterfowls, and animals, but I had no firearms or fire to cook 
with, and I could not find any indication of man's presence on the 
island. My first and greatest necessity was fire after I had found 
water and raw food, but how to produce fire was an important 
question; I did not possess proper material or the strength to 
produce it by friction. In vain I searched the knots of trees for 
punk to use as tinder, and tried a vast number of combustible 
looking fibers and rotten wood, and found some very fair 
flint stone, and with departed Bill Wilson's sheath knife as a 
steel I could produce sparks of fire, but I could not ignite any 
substance that I could find on the island in a dry state, and I 
concluded to look to the water for tinder, 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 395 

A very large tree had rotted away, leaving but a hollow stump 
resting about one foot above the ground; this stump was sur- 
rounded by vines and bushes, and was hollow; the hollow was 
filled with black water. I fished out of the bottom of the water 
near two quarts of soft fine vegetable matter that may have rested 
there near or over a century, and as I well knew that the long 
exposure of some substance to water produced the same eflfect as 
fire, I spread this vegetable substance over a sun-heated rock, 
and let it remain until the morrow's noonday, when it was a dry, 
dark powder. I caused my flint's firesparks to fall on it, and fire 
appeared and spread over it. I had fine, dry, rotten wood, dry 
leaves, and other combustible matter on hand, and very soon I 
had a good fire alongside of a fallen tree, where it was safe and 
secure for many days, and I opened up a cook house immediately. 
I constructed a novel trap, the chief part being three old broken- 
off limbs of trees near five feet in length and five inches in diame- 
ter, like cord-wood sticks. I bated my trap with shellfish and 
young ducks, food that I observed that some animals feasted on, 
with which I caught five opossums and three mongrel-looking 
raccoons, which it was absolutely necessary that I should possess, 
and without which I could never leave the island and put out to 
sea, as their skins, stripped off whole, were absolutely necessary 
as water sacks or vessels, and on which my life would depend, 
and I required at least two skins to cut into strips to calk my sun- 
dried boat, and their hides and fat or tallow were necessary to 
take the place of tar and oakum to render my boat seaworthy. 
At an early day, in Chili and many parts of South America, all 
wines and liquids were transported in goatskins. To prepare the 
fat of the animals for use, I set a large tortoise shell in water and 
melted the fat with heated stones, and in this fat I placed the strips 
of raccoon or opossum hides, which, when soaked, made first- 
rate calking for my boat; they made a tight joint where leaks 
had existed, and prevented me from becoming a Robinson 
Crusoe. 

I could have taken lines from my sails and rigged a snare and 
caught the animals, but all my tackling wa§ long and well worn, 



396 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

and I feared some animal would break it and make off with it, 
and I could not part with a single span of it, for it would have 
been disastrous to me. After capturing those eight animals and 
some winged life, I continued moving my trap onto other well- 
worn paths that they had used for ages on their journeys to the 
beach to feast on delicious shellfish, but although I greatly de- 
sired to procure one or two more skins for water tanks at sea, 
I could not catch or even see a single animal, or detect their pres- 
ence as I had previously done. All the animal life that I could 
see was field mice, and two or three very singular mongrel-look- 
ing animals, with mouths or beaks like ducks, and bodies like 
those of weasels or prairie gophers, and their skins were too 
small to be of much value as water jugs at sea, and I did not 
know if I had one day's or one year's voyage at sea, or whether 
it would be extended to the distant end of eternity. 

I made a journey across the island from my harbor; I judged 
the distance to be two miles where I crossed it. I feared to leave 
my boat and stores to travel its length, which, from what I had 
seen of it from the sea, I should judge it to be some seven miles 
in length. 

With an abundance of cooked food and water I in ten days 
gained strength, and stored water and provisions in my boat, and 
placed the last stones and shells on my unfortunate young com- 
panions' grave. With a resolve to battle against fate and to 
face all danger, but with sadness for the two departed young sail- 
ors, I cast off my line from the uninhabited and unknown island, 
and took to my jolly boat, and hoisted my tattered sail upon the 
bosom of the foaming deep, to sail, I knew not where, but I had 
selected my guiding star in the sky, as I had long since lost my 
bearings, and did not possess a compass, and death was con- 
stantly hovering near; yet I hoped to strike some main shore or 
an inhabited island, or sight a sail; but on the fourteenth night 
out a thick haze gathered around the horizon and dimmed the 
luster of the stars; clouds of black, portentous aspect broke from 
their moorings, and wildly rushed above my head; the wind 
twisted to and fro, and vast rushing waves appeared and di§- 



ADVENTITRES ON SEA AND LAND. 397 

appeared like phantoms of the deep. The voice of the ocean 
rose higher and higher in its attempts to silence the thunder's 
voice. 

The ambitious and proud ocean in its pride and power swelled 
and raged around me, and the tempest caused its phosphoric light 
to vie with heaven's lightning flashes. 

My fragile boat scudded here and there upon the vasty deep. 
I was now within a trough of the raging elements, and now upon 
a wave of frightful altitude, yet my frail bark rode buoyant on 
their crest, and now upon the very brink of a precipice of water 
looking down into what appeared to be a bottomless gulf. Now 
vivid flashes of lightning lit up heaven's watch-towers above me, 
and now clouds of thunder, the chariots of the Prince of Dark- 
ness, rushed by me, hurling thunder-bolts in their wake, and 
perturbed spirits of the condemned appeared on every side and 
mocked at my supposed security, as I glide in the unconfined 
realms of space. A pall of darkness that could be felt spread 
around me; exhausted nature had to yield, and I lay myself upon 
the wet bottom planks of my little boat, and drifted at the mercy 
of the winds and waves, a mere speck upon the face of the great 
ocean. Soon I sank as if in a never-ending dream in which Nep- 
tune took the helm, and Nereid stood at the bow as pilot. They 
lamented my hard fate, upon which I said that Titan, chained to 
the Caucasian rock, stayed his proud heart on his past triumphs, 
and that poor American Sailor I had also been chained to a bar- 
ren rock beneath the sun of the torrid zone, and yet I must live 
and die unknown. 

Then Nereid said that I should not die, but would witness won- 
ders that no sailor had ever looked upon; that I was now safe 
from all danger, but that I might complain of the cold and the 
dampness of the deep, as I was unacclimated; that the water that 
we would descend into was as extended as the air above us, that 
our direct course was North, where stood the cold, icy remains 
of the once deity, the great African Buso rested at a vast distance 
over us. We then stepped frorn ofif my much prized and dearly 
loved jolly-boat, into a splendid coach formed by a single glitter- 



39^ A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

ing and glistening shell of the unfathomed ocean which rested 
on a glass railroad track, with a team of ten dolphins harnessed 
to its bow. I queried of Neptune the necessity of a railroad and 
such a vast power to descend within the deep. He replied that 
as the unfathomable ocean possessed no center of gravity, no 
terrestrial gravitation, owing to its central location, the railroad 
was absolutely necessary to descend within its depths, for as the 
globe revolved our coach was sometimes on an up grade, and 
sometimes on a down grade, and that a ten-dolphin power was 
necessary to pass over the heavy grades. There was a grandeur 
in the journey; our dolphin team ever and anon changed their 
hues as does the chameleon of the land. 

On our rapid journey we passed mermaids assembled on their 
picnic grounds, and met others with streaming, wavy locks, glid- 
ing through their crystal home in splendid sea-shell coaches pro- 
pelled at railroad speed, some by a single big deep-sea trout, and 
others by big black bass. 

As Neptune and Nereid had existed long previous to man, I 
requested them to give me their known knowledge of man's crea- 
tion. Neptune said that the water of the world was the mother 
of all animal life, and that the earth was the mother of all vege- 
table life; that, at a period hundreds of centuries past and gone, 
the waters were affected by the subterranean heat of the earth, 
and chemical action took place which produced form and 
life, and some of the forms were men and women, and 
that all life, from the ponderous mastodon and whale 
down to the tiny mosquito, was created and cradled 
within the waving deep; that the process of forming man 
and woman through the various types and stages of 
construction consumed many centuries, at the end of which 
they crawled ashore and floundered on the beach as do the wal- 
rus and the seal ; they basked with joy beneath the genial sun, but 
when it approached its meridian they footed it to the shady bushes 
and groves. Adam, one of creation, was truly represented 
as coming from a clay formation, for he was created from a tiny 
speck of clay. This explanation of his creation at that period 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 399 

was necessary to a people in their infancy, who had gained a 
knowledge of forming a pitcher out of clay. There was no miss- 
ing link: God and Nature never miss a link. 

In process of time mankind conceived the idea, through the 
faint shadow of his presence and his mysterious birth, that there 
was a hidden power that gave them life, and placed them on the 
land. They were not idolators; they claimed a sovereign in the 
clouds, the Lord of Thunder, by the name of Zera; they also had 
a goddess of the earth, and called her Vono, who caused the trees 
to produce fruits and nuts, and the vines and plants to produce 
grapes and berries, and the flowers to bloom. Vono had an 
only son; she called him Cuzed; he was an archer, and he pos- 
sessed the same power over men and women, and beasts and 
birds, that his good mother Vono possessed over vegetation. 
The two this day continue to fill their stations, as by Omnipotence 
decreed. 

Then came the now well-known and great Cannes from the 
depths of the Erythraean Sea to teach men literature and the arts 
and sciences, and to his wisdom and untiring energy man owes 
a debt of gratitude; a debt that no praise or consideration can 
ever pay. It is well known that Demosthenes and ^schines 
placed this same history of man's creation and his infant life, as 
given to me by Neptune and Nereid, on record in 312 and 
330 B. c. Nereid, who possessed great intellectual ability, 
as well as. beauty of face and form, said she found early man 
merely the casket for intellect; at that period few in numbers, 
living beneath the shelter of the forest trees, or within the caverns 
of the earth. In time intellect dawned, and he wrenched the 
bark and boughs from off the trees to shelter him from the sun 
and storms, and he took the hides from the beasts of the forests 
and the plains to cover and protect his person. He saw the acorn 
fall from the tree and grow to produce its kind, and his dawning 
intellect told him to collect and place seeds and plants within the 
earth, and they would also in time come forth and produce their 
kind. At this period he placed his food in his mouth with his 
fingers, and bent down at the flowing brook to drink its waters 



466 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

as did the brute; but when he could not reach it with his Hps, he 
ascertained that he could convey the fluid to his mouth in the 
hollow of his hand. This discovery suggested the idea of pro- 
curing the buffalo and other horns for drinking cups. 

Centuries passed, then came habitations built with sun-dried 
bricks composed of clay and grass or straw; also with trans- 
parent skins for window lights, while the skins of goats were 
stripped off whole to form sacks or reservoirs for water at home, 
or to carry it on a journey. In some of those skin sacks he 
placed the milk of his cows and goats, and in others grapes and 
berries from the forest, and at his journey's end, to his astonish- 
ment, he found in some of his sacks butter and in others wine; 
this taught him the art of butter- and wine-making, to contain 
which he formed vessels of clay and hardened them by the heat 
of fire, and for ages those clay vessels contained the wine, and the 
kings and their subjects drank it from the unpolished and un- 
adorned horns of the buffalo and cattle. 

During this period superstition sprang up and flourished; 
centuries, many centuries, passed; then came the era in 
which intellect expanded, gold and silver and glass cups 
took the place of horns; iron, stone, and brass took 
the place of clay. Then the puny hand of man, guided 
by intellect, created wonders. Vast pyramids were erected 
by some, whilst others built castles and cities, and yet 
others entered into the arts and sciences. The press and re- 
fined literature drove superstition back to its birthplace of dark- 
ness; oceans were plowed by ships; the sun and stars measured 
and mapped on parchment, seas were caused to recede, con- 
tinents were lashed together; space was obliterated and lightning 
dissected — and man is now straining his intellect to fathom the 
depths of eternity. 

Man has performed works of vast magnitude! yet woman has 
done far more; she pointed out to man the binnacle light of 
Heaven, and taught him that there was a God. Intellect had its 
infancy; it will have its years of maturity; then will come its old 
age, and finally its decay. Thus spoke Nereid to Sailor I. After 



^ ADVENTURES ON SEA AND_^LAND. 4^1 

we had journeyed a great distance on the glass railroad, we 
brought up alongside of what Nereid called the " Court of 
Awards " to earthly man, and within which sat the judges dressed 
in ermine, who heard the prayers of all on earth, and rendered a 
decree. The judges had resided and passed their lives on earth 
as common men, and had been selected by the great Supreme as 
his aids-de-camp on account of their wisdom and pure lives, to 
do justice to their fellow-men as a lower court. I recognized 
several of the many judges: one was our George Washington; 
amongst the elder judges was Judge and King Dikran I. of 
Armenia, who acted in that capacity in the sixth century b. c, and 
Plato, who was born at Athens in the year 429 b. c; and King 
and Judge Agrippa of the days of Christ. 

The judges numbered hundreds, and the vast number of 
earthly mortals that appealed to the tribunal for aid astonished 
me, and their wants were of every conceivable kind. We were 
not permitted to know the court's decree. Some farmers were 
praying for rain and large crops; others in distant localities were 
praying for the rain to cease. Fishermen were praying for a 
good catch of fish. I was astonished at the large number of 
young men and women who prayed the court to permit them to 
become comedians and tragedians of renown. Rich men and 
women with gray locks prayed for more wealth, whilst many 
gaunt, pale-faced women and children prayed for bread. 

I was amazed on entering the hall of justice; its magnitude and 
grandeur; I can only explain by exclaiming as I then did, Oh, 
my! Oh, my! and saying that no human architecture could rival 
it in beauty and magnificence. The vast hall before us, its 
extent was measured by miles, and its gorgeous trimmings and 
decorations dazzled the sight; its lofty ceilings arched with dia- 
monds, and hundreds of huge Corinthian columns, constructed 
with rubies, relieved its vast extent. 

Nereid called my attention by pointing to an open casement. I 
looked, and behold! all the inhabitants of the world were plainly 
before me, and they were ever in sight of the court of judges. I 
could also view the seas that I had sailed on, and their harbors 



402 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

and shipping; and the mountains that I had journeyed over with 
weary limbs, and I viewed the ruins of ancient cities and vol- 
canoes in their infancy. I viewed the ocean panorama with won- 
der and amazement, although I felt a deathlike chill and coldness 
gnawing at my very heart; I was so chilled and cold that I wished 
to depart from Paradise and return to earth to warm myself in the 
sun of the south. 

I made my distressed condition known to Neptune and Ner- 
eid, and they lifted me up and carried me from the hall of justice 
and placed me in the dolphin coach on the glass railroad, to re- 
turn to earth. Their rough handling aroused me to conscious- 
ness, and the first thing I knew, two white men were rolling me 
on a wet beach near the ocean's dashing billows, with my head 
down in a hollow, endeavoring to empty the ocean's salt water out 
of me. Several naked savages with hungry looks stood near by, 
and three other savages were swimming in the surf and pushing 
my jolly-boat before them from the shore toward a coral or lava 
reef, to become its owners by conquest. 

The white men told me that I had been cast by the waves onto 
the shore of this one of the Sandwich Islands, north of the 
equator; that they were missionaries, and that without doubt 
they had brought me back to life. 

When I returned to consciousness I concluded that during the 
storm that raged at sea, and after I dropped myself exhausted 
onto the bottom of my boat, I had whilst in delirium or whilst 
unconscious, communed with Neptune and Nereid, and had jour- 
neyed on the glass railroad and visited the grand celestial court, 
and that my cold and chill resulted from surging waves which 
caused me to feel very uncomfortable in my dream. The kind 
missionaries who rescued me from the waves and the savages, 
and brought me back to life and administered to my every want, 
told me that the American Congress had provided funds to spread 
the Gospel among the heathen, and that was their mission to the 
islands. 

I had a desire to investigate this act of Congress to know its 
nature and its date; I made the investigation and found the mis- 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 4^3 

sionaries' report to me to be correct; that an act was passed 
on the third day of March, 1803, entitled an act to aid the 
society of the United Brethren for propagating the Gospel 
among the heathen, and the archives at Washington now bear 
witness that this same act passed by our American Congress, 
for the purpose of furnishing the Gospel to the heathen, was re- 
ferred to by our Congress in 1825, in an act granting lands in 
Florida and Louisiana to Major General Lafayette. Should our 
Congress of 1898 pass a like act, a vast tidal wave of amazement 
would sweep over this republic, and a howl of indignation would 
be heard in the foreign quarter, to be echoed back with astonish- 
ment from many foreign lands. 

The whirligig of time revolved on, and over half of a century 
passed; those American missionaries increased and multiplied, 
and formed a Christian government on the cannibal islands. 
America's President and his Cabinet sent bad, designing men to 
the islands to blot the American islanders out, through indirect 
means. 

Sailor I desired to show my gratitude to the descendants of my 
preservers, if only in a small way, but in a more efificient man- 
ner, if necessary. To explain, the Davenport " Times," a leading 
journal of Iowa, of February 20, 1894, and which is now before 
me, published as follows: 

" HELP FOR HAWAII. 



"A. C. Fulton Sends Munitions of War to Honolulu to he Used in 
Defense of the Infantile Hawaiian Government — The Corre- 
spondence.^ 

" A. C. Fulton has great faith in the present Hawaiian Govern- 
ment, and is an earnest supporter of it. His desire to see the 
Hawaiian ship of state sail majestically on prompted him last 
December to send President Dole a box of arms and ammunition 
with which to defend the property of the government from foes 
within and without. Accompanying the shipment was the fol- 



4<54 A LIFERS VOYAGE. 

lowing epistle, which, no doubt, was cheery tidings to President 
Dole, the present head of the Hawaiian Government: 
"'President Dole: 

" ' Good Sir: I ship you by Adams Express Company one box, 
containing one Springfield rifle, 45-70 caliber, long range, good 
at five hundred yards. One Winchester rifle, a twelve-shooter, 
45-60 cartridge. One best quality double-barreled, Damascus 
steel shotgun, long range, can carry shot, ball, or slug, and two 
packages of ammunition to defend life, property, and the 
Hawaiian republic. I retain No. 4 and ammunition to carry per- 
sonally if necessary. 

" ' Respectfully, 

"'A. C. Fulton, 

" ' Davenport, la. 

" ' P. S. — Please, please never surrender or capitulate.' 

" It takes some time for a communication to reach Honolulu, 
away out on the bosom of the Pacific from here, and the follow- 
ing reply has just been received by the enthusiastic sender: 

" * Department of Foreign Affairs, 

" ' Honolulu, January 30, 1894. 
"'Dear Sir: 

" * It is my pleasant duty to inform you that the arms and am- 
munition you mention in your letter of December nth, last, have 
arrived. 

" * I accept with pleasure your gift, which, aside from its in- 
trinsic worth, I esteem and value as evidence that Hawaii pos- 
sesses a brave and loyal friend. 

" ' Of our intention to maintain our present position and build 
up a stable and enlightened government in these islands you may 
rest assured. We have, I think, enough supporters here to 
oppose attacks by any faction or clique against constituted* 
authority, and therefore would not recommend you to come out 
here, believing that you could aid us quite sufficiently at home 
by disseminating correct ideas in regard to our country. 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 4^5 

" * Thanking you for your generous gift and sympathy, I have 

the honor to be, 

'* ' Your obedient servant, 

" ' Sanford B. Dole, 
'' ' President and Minister of Foreign Affairs. 
" ' To A. C. Fulton, Esq., Davenport, la., U. S. A.' " 

Then on February 24, 1894, the Rock Island " Union," of the 
State of Illinois, a widely known and influential journal, speaks 
of the transaction, and publishes as follows: 



" AN AGGRESSIVE SYMPATHIZER. 



''A. C. Fulton of Davenport Sends War Mimitions to the Hazuaiian 
Republic — A Letter from President Dole. 

" Mr. A. C. Fulton, a well-known citizen of Davenport, has not 
only been violating the neutrality laws by sending munitions of 
war to the President of Hawaii, but has had the temerity to avow 
it, in utter contempt of President Cleveland's policy spleen. In 
a letter to the Davenport ' Tribune ' Mr. Fulton sets forth his 
sympathy for the cause of the republic erected on the ruins of a 
depraved and rotten monarchy, and how he was prompted to 
intervene to the best of his limited ability by sending a box of 
guns and ammunition to President Dole, and paying the freight. 
$8.05 more! His letter to President Dole was as follows." 

The Rock Island " Union " continues by publishing the ship- 
ment of arms and ammunition to Hawaii, and President Dole's 
letter of thanks. 

The aid of one poor sailor in a nation's cause may appear as 
naught, yet might has slumbered in a single arm. A weak hand, 
with pen and ink, may cause thousands to feel the lash of justice 
and make them cringe, and cause tyrants to fear the sword of 
vengeance, when no sword is in sight; the charges from those 
arms sent to President Dole of Hawaii were felt before they were 
fired, 



4o6 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Previous to the descendants of the good missionaries taking 
hold of the hehn of the ship of state, Hawaii was a first-class 
pandemonium, yet the descendants of the tawny cannibal pos- 
sessed wisdom and manly traits unknown or unpracticed by the 
white man, whose example was an injury, not a benefit, to the 
savages. 

The early and well-known navigator, Captain Cook, in 1778 
signed his own death warrant; he disregarded the person and 
the property of the islanders, and treated them in a manner that 
brutes would have resented. His piratical acts and cold-blooded 
murders sealed his own doom. His crew shot down a native on 
their first stepping on the island's beach; then soon Captain 
Cook's revengeful artillery was brought to bear on friends and 
foes alike. Villages were consumed by fire, and those who had 
supplied his ship, the " Discovery," with wood, water, and ship 
stores, free of cost, were put to the sword; deplorable acts of 
cruelty were perpetrated by the " Discovery's " officers and crew. 
Previously unknown contagion was introduced, to linger for ages 
to destroy the health and the lives of thousands. 

The white man's acts disgusted the savages, and he implored 
his gods to move him from his island. Captain Cook's own log, 
and his own offtcers', gave this dark history. 

A continuation of wrongs well known to Sailor I, but too 
numerous to here place on record, followed in quick succession, 
and more than one kingly power, using every exertion and in- 
trigue to seize upon the tawny nation and their eight fertile 
islands. 

Then, in 1839, came the hostile French frigate " Artemise," 
of sixty-two guns; Captain Laplace. The captain, without any 
preliminaries, or making any investigation, issued a manifesto as 
follows : 

" His majesty, the King of France, has instructed me to come 
to Honolulu, and put an end either by force or persuasion to the 
ill-treatment of the French on the Sandwich Islands. The chiefs, 
who are misled hy perfidious counselors^ are ignorant of the fagt 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 4©? 

that there is not in the world a power capable of preventing 
France from punishing her enemies, or they would have en- 
deavored to merit her favor instead of incurring her displeasure; 
they must comprehend that to tarnish the Catholic religion with 
the name of idolatry, and to expel the French under the absurd 
pretext from this archipelago, was to ofifer an insult to France 
and to her sovereign. 

" Among all civilized nations there is not one that does not per- 
mit the free exercise of all religions in its territory; I therefore 
demand, 

" I. That the Catholic worship be declared free throughout 
all the islands. 

" 2. That a site at Honolulu for a Catholic church be given 
by the Government. 

" 3. That all Catholics imprisoned on account of their religion 
be immediately set at liberty. 

" 4. That the king place in the hands of the captain of the 
* Artemise ' the sum of twenty thousand dollars as a guarantee of 
his future conduct toward France; to be restored when it shall 
be considered that the requirements be faithfully complied with. 

" 5. That the treaty signed by the king, as well as the money, 
be brought on board of the frigate ' Artemise ' by a principal 
chief, and that the French flag be saluted with twenty-one guns. 

" These are the conditions of the price on which the King of the 
Sandwich Islands shall preserve friendship with France. If, mis- 
led by bad advisers, the king and chiefs refuse to sign the treaty 
I present, war will immediately commence, and all its devastations 
and calamities that will result shall be imputed to you alone, and 
you must pay all damages that foreigners sustain and will have 
a right to claim." 

Guns were manned, and the harbor declared to be in a state 
of blockade. The American missionaries found protection under 
the flag of the United States Consulate. 

The twenty thousand dollars demanded under " Demand No. 
4 " was hastily procured by the islanders^ and taken on board of 



4o8 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

the " Artemise," much to the astonishment of Captain Laplace 
and his officers, as they greatly desired some pretense for making 
war on the islanders. When the king's secretary, Haalilio, went 
on board the man-of-war with the twenty thousand dollars he was 
detained on board as a hostage. 

After receiving the money Captain Laplace, with i6o armed 
men with their band of music, went on shore ai.d took possession 
of one of the king's warehouses, and on the following day a 
clause was added to the unrighteous list of requirements pre- 
viously exacted. This added clause read that no French mer- 
chandise, especially wine and brandy, should be prohibited nor 
pay a duty higher than five per cent, ad valorem. The islanders, 
being within the artillery's range, were compelled to sign the 
documents as presented. Then, in 1842, the British consul 
Charlton was intriguing and threatening the Hawaiian officials, 
even calling on British ships of war to intimidate and bring the 
Sandwich Islands under British sway, and constantly claiming 
that the islanders were the subjects of Great Britain. 

The French monarch was not content to let Hawaii rest in her 
growing prosperity. When, in 1848, a duty was placed on all 
spirits, a duty that displeased several European nations, then 
through the complaint of France's consul, Mr. Dillon, in 1849, 
the French frigate " Poursuivante " and the steamer corvette 
" Gassendi," Admiral De Tromelin, appeared at the islands in a 
rage — the chief ground of complaint was the high duty that the 
Hawaiian authorities had placed on King Louis Philippe's 
drugged brandy — with the following ten demands: 

1. The adoption of the treaty of 1846. 

2. The reduction of the duty on French brandy. 

3. The subjection of Catholic schools to the direction of the 
French mission, and not to Protestant inspectors. 

4. The use of the French language in all business intercourse 
between French citizens and the Hawaiian Government. 

5. The withdrawal of the exception by which French whalers 
which imported wines and spirits were affected, and the abroga- 




PRESIDENT DOLE OF HAWAII. 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 409 

tion of the regulation which obhged vessels laden with liquors 
to pay the customhouse officers placed on board to superintend 
their loading and unloading. 

6. The return of all duties collected by virtue of the regula- 
tion the withdrawal of which was demanded by the fifth article. 

7. The return of a fine of twenty-five dollars paid by the war- 
ship " General Teste." 

8. The punishment of certain schoolboys whose impious con- 
duct in church caused complaint. 

9. The removal of the Governor of Hawaii for permitting the 
house of a priest to be violated by police officers entering it to 
make an arrest. 

10. The payment to a French hotel keeper for the damages 
committed in his house by sailors from the British man-of-war 
" Amphitrite." 

The Hawaiian king was given three days in which to answer 
those demands, and if not acceded to, then existing treaties would 
be canceled, and means of reparation employed. The king imme- 
diately and firmly replied that all treaties had been faithfully ob- 
served; that the duty on brandy was not prohibitory; that the 
imports of French brandy had greatly increased ; that equality in 
the different forms of worship was provided for; that the public 
schools supported by the funds of the Government should not be 
placed under the direction of any mission whether Catholic or 
Protestant, and that the adoption of the French language in busi- 
ness was not required by treaty or international law, and was im- 
practicable. 

In reply to the fifth and sixth demands, the laws applied equally 
to the vessels of all nations. The ship " General Teste " had 
violated the harbor laws and the penalty had been reduced from 
five hundred dollars to twenty-five dollars. In regard to the 
three last demands the admiral was informed that the courts of 
the kingdom adjusted such grievances; that they were not sub- 
jects for diplomacy. 

The Hawaiian kingdom offered to refer any disputed question 



4IO A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

to a neutral power, and informed the admiral that no resistance 
would be made to his forces. Soon after this reply an armed 
force of marines, numbering 140 men and their officers, with 
field pieces, were landed without opposition. The invaders took 
possession of an unmanned fort and several merchant vessels. 
The furniture and other property of the sinning governor were 
destroyed. The king's yacht, " Kamehameha III.," was con- 
fiscated. No coasting vessels were permitted to depart, and all 
incoming vessels were required to anchor under the guns of the 
French ships-of-war. All business was suspended, the fort was 
dismantled, the cannon spiked, muskets broken. The treaty of 
1846 was annulled, and the French admiral set sail a victorious 
and happy man. 

The islanders under threats had to submit to every demand. 
The American missionaries found protection beneath the flag of 
the United States consul. 

Through the fear of the French kingdom, and the dissatisfac- 
tion and threats of both England and Germany through their 
armed ships and officers of war, the island license laws and the 
liquor duty which the powers declared to be prohibitory, and to 
aflfect their commerce, were not enforced, to the great injury and 
the death of many thousands of the natives. 

At a recent period Germany desired to continue her dictation, 
and her men-of-war sent an armed force of marines to test their 
ability and reception on shore. A single Yankee, who had heard 
their boasts, picked up a squad of natives, and sent some to in- 
vaders' graves, and others limping back to their ships, to enter the 
cockpit under the surgeon's charge. 

Brandy's liberty, not man's, was at stake; had it not been for 
French brandy and other liquors being forced on the islanders at 
the cannon's mouth by claimed civilization, then no British sailors 
would have damaged the Frenchman's hotel, and no No. 10 would 
have been reached, in the admiral's demands on the king of the 
Cannibal islands. 

If it had not been for whisky drank when storing the cargo that 
shifted; then our noble ship, the *' Salem," with her officers and 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 411 

most of her crew, would not have gone to the bottom of the 
Pacific, and caused Sailor I great sorrow and hardship. 

At an early day we sailors named New England rum " long- 
range death"; Monongahela whisky, *' short-range death," and 
French brandy, such as was sold to the West Indian and Hawaiian 
Islands, '* instant death." Yet many of us sailors, when on 
shore, affectionately embraced the trio. 

French brandy, a vile compound, sold before the cannon's 
mouth to the natives of the islands and others, to steal their 
brains, impoverish their wives and little ones, and place thousands 
of besotted parents beneath the earth, and wreck other thou- 
sands. Thus at that day did slaughter and poverty exist on the 
Hawaiian Islands. 

Brandy on the islands claimed its supremacy, as did whisky 
in Western Pennsylvania in 1794, when Washington with his 
forces stepped in to be its conqueror. It is here plainly exhibited 
that brandy through its emissaries demanded its independence 
and its right to enslave the islanders of Hawaii as its twin brother 
whisky enslaved the Indians and the whites in every station of life 
in our America. 

Sailor I have witnessed and recorded in my diary whisky's 
simoon of poverty and death. I have conversed with many on 
the drinking subject, but never found one who regretted that he 
had passed his life in sobriety; on the contrary, I have found 
many who bitterly lamented that they had wasted their lives in 
drink; I have heard those lamentations from the occupants of 
stately mansions, from men in the middle walks of life, from the 
ship's cabin and the forecastle, from the county poorhouse, the 
prison, and the gallows. I have heard the dying groans of the 
inebriate of the palace, the basement, and the squalid shanty, and 
witnessed the poverty-stricken widow's tears and heard the 
orphan's prayers produced through Bacchus. Near me now 
stands what was once a cozy cottage where Hope and Prudence 
dwelt; an angel kept the door. Beer entered; the angel fled; 
Hope is dead, and Prudence is in the lock-up. I have seen a fond 
mother plant warm kisses upon the rosy cheeks of her bright- 



412 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

eyed infant boy, and in after years I saw that fond mother, with 
trembHng Hmbs and locks bleached by time, kneeling on the cold 
ground beside and kissing that same boy's bloated, begrimed, 
and battered cheeks as he lay upon the rough earth cold in death, 
to wring hot, burning tears from that fond mother's eyes, through 
whisky's ever-blighting and destructive power. Whisky, thou 
ragged, penniless, bloated, yet powerful despot; more dangerous 
than the serpent of the sea! how firm is thy grasp upon the hearts 
and the souls of men, and how monstrous are the evils thou heap- 
est upon them! Hearts have been broken under thy influence, 
and strong arms have been weakened by thy power; happiness 
has been turned into despair and misery; poverty and want are 
ever thy companions, and desolation follows thy march. 

Thousands of gaunt, pale-faced children hast thou placed 
within untimely graves, through the want of food and clothing. 
Minds brave and generous have been ruined by thy touch, and 
hearts full of tenderness and love have been hardened by thy 
fascinations. 

Thou art indeed the arch-enemy of mankind; all-potent for 
evil and powerless for good; may thy reign soon be ended, and 
thy victims be reclaimed and set free! 

And thou, marble-hearted monster, who dealest out to man for 
gain thy liquid poison, when on thy dying bed decree thine own- 
just punishment for the sighs, the dying groans, the sorrow and 
the misery thou hast caused! Monster! would thy own decree of 
self to an endless purgatory do thee injustice? Meditate and 
answer. 

It was not France alone that ill-treated and imposed on the 
weak islanders; they were bullied over and ill-treated by Great 
Britain's consul, Mr. Charlton, and Sir George Simpson; the 
former set up a fictitious claim to lands, and through British 
power retained them; the native owners expostulated in vain; the 
royal brutes were deaf to the voice of remonstrance, but a recital 
of many acts of wrong would not interest the present world, so 
let the acts pass into oblivion. 

Then at a later day came the unprincipled and armed filibusters, 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 4^3 

who desired to reap where they had not sown, and destroy the 
good missionaries' long and hard work, and reduce the island 
republic to a monarchy; but instead of establishing a monarchy 
under their dictation, the vandals found powder and balls and 
prison cells, and caused British threats and diplomacy to remind 
Sailor I of kindness and protection. 

The islanders passed through those and many other oppres- 
sions and trials in which they showed themselves to be the 
European's equal, if not his superior, in diplomacy and true man- 
hood. 

Royalty believes that the world was created for Caesar, and in 
an equal degree for those who follow the trail as subordinates of 
the imperial, and that the mass of mankind was doomed by fate to 
supply the whims and the wants of power and meekly wear the 
yoke of tyranny, or even the sacrifice of life for inferior beings 
who are clothed in power, and who set aside all justice and 
humanity at will. 

Look at Italy's crown, which but very lately forced thousands 
of its subjects onto the spears of the Abyssinians, whom the 
Italian king and crown are seeking to enslave. Then look at 
Spain, who for ages has been placing one portion of her people 
as targets for another portion to shoot down, and now Hang- 
man General Weyler is practicing his profession on Cuba's Isle; 
and look back at the thousands of England's Irish slaves, who 
bared their breasts for the Russian lead and bayonets to stab to 
death at Sebastopol. 

The Hawaiians published a small school book in 1822, The 
first Hawaiian editor published his paper in 1834. The Sand- 
wich Islands '' Gazette," an English journal, was launched at 
Honolulu in 1836. 

A girls' boarding school was opened in Wailuku in 1837, and 
a manual-labor school was established in Hilo for boys. In 1833 
the Rev. John Diell brought from New London, Conn., to Hono- 
lulu a seaman's chapel all in shape to set up; the king gave a lot of 
ground to erect the chapel on. In 1834 Chief Hoapili made a 
raid and destroyed every distillery on his island of Oahu, and for- 



414 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

bade his subjects to ever erect another producer of poverty and 
death. 

Schools were opened for native children in 1832; in that year, 
1832, a census was taken which gave the kingdom a population 
of 130,384. The ports of the Sandwich Islands have been of vast 
value to the American whaleships as ports of supply and havens 
of safety. In 1838 natives, ship captains, and business men 
petitioned the king and council to put a check on the extensive 
traffic in ardent spirits at Honolulu; a heavy license was put on 
the sale, and the twelve saloons were reduced to two, with good 
effect. 

During the year 1837 and the two following years, over seven 
thousand converts were admitted to the churches. In 1839 
Hawaii's first constitution was drawn up in the native language. 
The Bill of Rights says, "All men of every religion shall be pro- 
tected in worshiping Jehovah and serving him according to their 
own understanding." The Bible was translated into the Hawaiian 
language in 1839. I^^ 1841 a large stone church was erected in 
Honolulu, costing sixty thousand dollars, one-half of which was 
given by the king of the savages. 

The United States recognized the independence of the 
Hawaiian Islands in 1842, through Daniel Webster, then 
Secretary of State, and the United States was the first govern- 
ment to recognize the Pacific Island Kingdom. Queen Emma, 
in 1859, performed a noble act; she procured funds and estab- 
lished a hospital known as The Queen's Hospital. 

The soil and climate of Hawaii are adapted to sugar, cotton, 
coffee, rice, and silk culture, and all kinds of grain and fruits 
known to its latitude. The first Hawaiian railroad was built in 
1879, the second in 1881. The first telephone line was erected 
in 1878; several others soon followed in various cities. 

In 1879 ^^^^ 1880 several successful artesian wells were bored; 
those wells now number over sixty. Street tramways were con- 
structed in Honolulu as early as 1889. Hawaii in 1892 had 168 
schools, with 10,712 pupils; 28 of these schools were govern- 
ment native schools, with 29 teachers and 552 pupils; there were 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 



415 



99 government English schools, with 221 teachers and 7148 
pupils, and 41 independent schools, with 141 teachers and 3012 
pupils. 

Hawaii island has an area of 4210 square miles, something 
larger than Delaware and Rhode Island; those two States com- 
bined having an area of 3426 square miles. The other seven 
Sandwich Islands — Maui, Oahu, Kauai, Molokai, Lanai, Nihau, 
and Kahoolawe — all combined are not as large as Hawaii, but 
Honolulu gives an importance to Oahu, as well as the largest 
population. 

In the days of the monarchy, when nobles were created and a 
House of Nobles existed, the common people had no voice in the 
government ; then soon came the property qualification, a require- 
ment that possesses value. No person could be a representative 
unless he was the owner of real estate within the kingdom to the 
extent of $500 clear of all incumbrance. All voters were re- 
quired to be the owners of real estate worth $150 above all in- 
cumbrance, or have an income of not less than $75 per annum, 
and, if born since 1840, to know how to read and write. If the 
same laws had existed in the United States in 1830 and since, 
General Jackson and Grover Cleveland would never have been 
Presidents. This law would have stricken Tammany with a 
cyclone's force. 

The legislative power was vested in the House of Nobles, com- 
posed of fourteen nobles, together with the king and premier, and 
a body of representatives to be chosen by the people. 



NAMES OF KINGS AND WHEN CROWNED. 



Kamehameha I., 
Kamehameha II., 
Kamehameha III., 
Kamehameha IV., 
Kamehameha V., 
Lunalilo, 
Kalakauau, 
Liliuokalani, 



1782 
1819 

1833 
1854 
1863 

1873 
1874 
1891 



4i6 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

The islanders had their unwritten constitution and laws long 
before the days of Captain Cook. During the reign of King 
Kamehameha III., in 1839, the Declaration of Rights and the 
first code of laws were drawn up by a graduate of one of the isl- 
ands* seminaries, under the direction of the king. In 1840 the 
first Constitution was placed on paper, and approved by the 
council of chiefs and commons, and signed by the king and pre- 
mier. This Constitution was originally composed in the Ha- 
waiian language and by Hawaiians. 

In November, 1843, Great Britain and France unitedly recog- 
nized the government of the Hawaii Islands. In 1847 justices' 
courts, circuit courts, and a Supreme Court were organized, and 
their respective jurisdictions defined. The first Supreme Court 
consisted of the king and premier, and four judges appointed by 
the legislature. In 1892 there were 20,536 hands employed on 
the sugar plantations of the islands. Five steamboats ply be- 
tween all the island ports. 

For the information of President Cleveland, his Cabinet and 
Ministers to Hawaii — Blount and Willis and their successors — 
I desire to record the fact that Hawaii had, as early as 1893, an 
Annexation Club; its records exhibiting a membership of 6596, 
being sixty-three per cent, of the voters of the islands, and plainly 
showing the desire of the people. 

The following table exhibits the classes of nationality and the 
island locations, which shows that the desire for annexation to 
the United States is widespread, and not local or confined to 
nationalitv: 





' 








TOTAL 






MAUI AND 






NATION- 


NATIONALITY, 


HAWAII. 


MOLOKAI. 


OAHU. 


. KAUAI. 


ALITY. 


American, 


. 287 


138 


950 


74 


1449 


Hawaiian, 


• 729 


236 


610 


96 


I67I 


Portuguese, 


785 


353 


935 


313 


2386 


British, . 


86 


40 


213 


12 


351 


German, . 


49 


39 


243 


89 


420 


Norwegian, 


9 


5 


51 


7 


7^ 


Others unclassified, 


9 


27 


205 


6 


247 


Total per island. 


1954 


838 


3207 


297 


6596 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 



417 



This is a large number to be working in concert for annexa- 
tion, and is a power that must be felt in every quarter of the 
globe. 



Amounts of Money Invested on the Islands in i8p^, and Nation- 
alities of the Investors. 



American, 

Hawaiian-born Americans, 

British, 

Hawaiian-born British, 

German, 

Hawaiian-born Germans, 

Native Hawaiians, 

Half-caste Hawaiians, 

Chinese, 

Portuguese, 

All other nationalities, 

Total, 



$21,700,689 
4,408,477 

6,787,738 
429,206 

2,048,458 

68,0 34 

90,611 

562,132 

304,340 
49,920 

392,115 
$36,841,690 



Imports: Country from Which Imported, zvith the Value of Goods 
Passing through the Customhouse and Paying Duty in i8p2. 



United States Pacific Ports, 

United States Atlantic Ports, 

Great Britain, 

Germany, 

Australia and New Zealand, 

China, .... 

Japan, .... 

France, 

Islands in the Pacific, 

Total, 



$541,822.50 

11,978.44 

332.767.75 

89,057-34 
33.874-10 

125,853-59 

58,481.55 
3.267.38 

291. II 
$1,197,393.76 



4i8 



A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 



Value of goods free of duty, by treaty with the United States. 
Total into all island ports, from the United States, $2,340,717.24 
in 1892. Too bad that this good market was thrown away! 

I must here record the names of the several Islands with their 
native population in 1832; this native population has been greatly 
reduced since my early days: 



Hawaii, 

Maui, 

Oahu, 

Kauai, 

Molokai, 

Lanai, . 

Niihau, 

Kahoolawe, 



Total Population, 



45792 
35.062 

29.755 
10,977 

6,000 

i,6oo 

1,047 

80 

130,313 



Nationality and Number of Pupils in the Government Schools 

in i8p2. 



Hawaiians, 

Half-caste Hawaiians, 

Americans, 

English, 

Portuguese, 

Chinese, 

Germans, 

Norwegians, 

South Sea Islanders, 

Japanese, 

Other Foreigners, 



5.353 
1,866 

371 

131 

2,253 

353 
191 

71 
36 
60 
21 



Total, 



10,706 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 



419 



Population and Nationality in i8po. 



Natives, 








34436 


Half-castes, 








6,186 


Chinese, 








15.301 


American, ..... 








2,066 


Hawaiian, born of foreign parents, 








7495 


Britons, . . . . 








. 1,344 


Portuguese, ..... 








8,602 


Germans, ..... 








1434 


French, ..... 








70 


Japanese, ..... 








12,360 


Norwegian, ..... 








22y 


Other foreigners, .... 








419 


Polynesian, 








588 



Number and Nationality of Laborers on Sugar Plantations in i8p2. 



Hawaiians, ..... 


. 1,717 


Chinese, 


. 2,617 


Portuguese, 


. 2,526 


Japanese, 


. 13,019 


South Sea Islanders, 


141 


All others, 


. . . . 516 



Total, 



20,536 



The post offices on the island number fifty-eight; this exhibit 
speaks of education and civilization more plainly than it can be 
written. 

This exhibit of Plawaii's ability, progress, and greatness will 
astonish the American Congress of 1894, as well as thousands of 
other uninformed persons. 1 



420 AjLIFE'S VOYAGE. 

THE BIRTH OF THE HAWAIIAN REPUBLIC IN 1894. 

President San ford B. Dole's Proclamation. 

" And now, in behalf of the men who have carried this cause 
along and who have stood ready to defend it with their lives, in 
behalf of the women who have given it their prayers and their 
husbands and sons, for the benefit and protection of all the peo- 
ple of this country, of whatever race or name, and in gratitude to 
God, whose hand has led us: 

" I, Sanford B. Dole, President of the Provisional Government 
of the Hawaiian Islands, by virtue of the charge to me given by 
the executive and advisory councils of the provisional govern- 
ment, and by act dated July 3, 1894, proclaim the Republic of 
Hawaii as the sovereign authority over and throughout the 
Hawaiian Islands from this time forth. And I declare the con- 
stitution framed and adopted by the constitutional convention of 
1894 to be the constitution and the supreme law of the republic 
of Hawaii, and by virtue of this constitution I now assume the 
office and authority of President thereof. God save the 
republic! " 

PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF 1894. 

Executive Council. 

Sanford B. Dole, President of the Provisional Government of 
the Hawaiian Islands, and Minister of Foreign Aflfairs; J. A. 
King, Minister, of the Interior; S. M. Damon, Minister of 
Finance; W. O. Smith, Attorney General. 

In the palmy days of President Cleveland, and his useful man, 
Willis, a Chicago journal published the following: 

'' When Queen Liliuokalani was asked by Minister Willis 
whether, after she had been restored to her throne by the power 
of the United States, she would grant full amnesty to all persons 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 421 

connected with the provisional government she hesitated a mo- 
ment and then slowly and calmly replied: 

'' ' There are certain laws of my government by which I shall 
abide. My decision would be, as the law directs, that such per- 
sons should be beheaded and their property confiscated to the 
government.' 

" Subsequently, after much urging on the part of one or two 
of her advisers, she consented to spare the lives of the revolution- 
ists on condition that they and their children be forever banished 
from the islands and their property confiscated. It was only at 
the last moment, when she saw that she was absolutely powerless, 
that she professed a willingness to grant the full amnesty de- 
manded. 

" And this is the kind of a queen the United States Government 
has been trying to replace upon a throne the right to which she 
had long ago forfeited by her own gross misconduct! This is 
Mr. Cleveland's ' great and good friend,' in whose welfare he and 
his secretary of state have taken such a lively interest! 

" Can anyone, after reading Minister Willis' dispatches, be in 
doubt any longer as to whether the rebellion against the authority 
of such a queen was justified?" 

Not a very bright picture to present to the young republic and 

the world. 

The progress made by those swarthy islanders in civilization, 
agriculture, commerce, mechanics, the arts and sciences, and 
literature should astonish the world. Look at them when Cap- 
tain Cook and his men treated them as brutes in 1778, then come 
down and view them in the first American missionary and my 
own early days; they within two-thirds of a century have made 
an advancement in greatness that no European nation reached in 
six centuries ; an advancement that no nation, save America, ever 
outstripped. 

Notwithstanding President Cleveland's acts and opinion to the 
contrary, and Commissioner Blount and Minister Willis' preju- 
dices to American sway on those Sandwich Islands, Sailor I 



422 



A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 



assert that national honor, benefit, safety, and duty, as well as the 
protection of the islanders, require us to maintain our acquired 
rights to control those ocean islands, and protect their worthy 
native people that we watched over, nourished, and educated in 
their infancy, and more than once intervened to protect from 
the grasp of tyranny. 

I named 15,301 Chinese as residing on the islands; those Chi- 
nese did not drift onto the islands' shore as they did onto that of 
California, but were invited and urged to immigrate to the islands 
of Hawaii, by a visiting commission, to work on the sugar plan- 
tations at greatly increased wages, and through the same chan- 
nel the Portuguese and the Japanese reached the Hawaiian 
Islands. 

It will be observed that 2386 Portuguese are members of the 
Annexation Club. In 1839 there were 2253 Portuguese children 
attending the public schools. The last census of 1890 places the 
Portuguese population of the islands at 8602. I have felt a great 
interest in Portugal and the Portuguese ever since I fell in with 
Second Mate Salmas, of the Spanish slaveship that was cap- 
tured off Cuba at an early day by the little schooner *' Meta- 
mora." Mr. Salmas was thoroughly acquainted with the history 
of his country, ancient as well as modern, and furnished my diary 
with copious notes of great interest and value to Sailor I, dating 
back 240 years b. c, but space will not permit their transfer 
to my record, and the history may not be of value to the 
present world; but I will place on my record the names of some 
of Portugal's early sovereigns, with the date of their reign. 



Henry I., ........ . 


1085 


Alfonso I., ........ 


. 1112 


Sancho I., 


1 186 


Alfonso II., ........ 


1211 


Sancho II., 


1223 


Alfonso III., ' 


1248 


Dinis, ......... 


1279 


Alfonso IV., 


1325 



ADVENTURES ON SEA AND LAND. 



423 



Pedro I., . 
Fernando I, 
Joam L, 
Duarte, 
Alfonso v., 
Joam 11. , 
Manuel, 



1357 
1367 
1385 
1433 
1438 
1481 

1495 



Mate Salmas said that his Portugal home was located on 
Europe's most western border, that its average length from north 
to south is 368 American miles, and its average breadth from 
east to west is 105 miles, giving it an area of 38,640 square miles, 
or 24,729,600 acres of land. This kingdom is somewhat larger 
than the State of Kentucky, which has an area of 37,680 square 
miles, or 24,115,200 acres. Her colonial possessions are numer- 
ous, and several times larger than the home territory, and con- 
sist of the Cape Verde Islands, Senegambia, Mozambique. 
Macao, and Principe. 

At an early day Portugal had to frequently fight for an ex- 
istence; she was under or dictated to by Spain from 1578 up to 
1640. At one period Portugal claimed possession of the vast 
territory of Brazil, a territory extending 2610 miles north and 
south by an average of 2430 miles east and west, and Portugal 
planted there Brazil's first colony in 1531, most of whom were the 
descendants of the Arabians. Mate Salmas was a full-blooded 
Arabian, although a native of Portugal. The majority of the in- 
habitants of the south portion of the kingdom of Portugal are 
descendants of Arabians, but now as the people of the other por- 
tions of the country, in religion they are Roman Catholics. A 
larger number of African slaves were shipped into Brazil than 
into any Central or South American state, but its vast number 
was exceeded by the United States. 

The negro slaves of Brazil had the poor privilege, through a 
law, to purchase themselves, but such laws are laws of mockery, 
for in all slave communities, not one-third who work and starve 
to purchase themselves ever gain their freedom after making full 



424 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

payment, for at the close of payment, a new master calls for his 
recently purchased slave, or the old master, who has his negro's 
money in his pocket, annuls the contract, and under the lash of 
the whip orders the slave to go to work for the balance of his 
working life. 

Slashed-cheek John said that he well knew three slaves, one of 
them a native African, the two others natives of Virginia, all 
three owned by one master, who after twenty years' overwork, 
and a large sum of money paid for themselves, were seized 
by the sheriff and sold at auction to pay their master's debt. 
John was reliable, and was not deluded by phantasm. There is 
not one person in ten thousand that ever knew or sought to 
know, through investigation, the horrors and the cruel wrongs 
of human slavery. 

It was slavery that placed the halter on the neck of Ossa- 
wotomie John Brown at Harper's Ferry, and it was slavery that 
directed and nerved the arm of Abraham Lincoln's assassin. 

The kingdom of Portugal is less spoken of and known to the 
journals and the people of the United States than any other king- 
dom of Europe, if not of the world. To test my assertion, please 
to request yourself to rehearse Portugal's ancient and modern 
history. 

It is but a small task to move on to subdued land that has been 
built upon ; it is but a small task to move into a palace or a man- 
sion that toil and genius have erected ; it is but a small task for an 
author or historian to speak of or build up a nation or a nation's 
hero, that has already been raised aloft to the public view, but to 
lift greatness from obscurity's lowest pit requires a stanch cap- 
stan and a Hercules at the capstan bar. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

1850 ARRIVES STIRRING EVENTS ON THE NORTHWESTERN 

FRONTIER A RESOLUTE ATTExMPT TO EXTEND THE CURSE 

OF SLAVERY INTO KANSAS AND NEBRASKA SAILOR I CALLED 

UPON TO INTERVENE. 

T/ANSAS and Nebraska form a large extent of terri- 
tory, a territory much larger than some of the kingdoms 
of the world. Kansas possesses an area of square miles 
greater than the whole New England States, a larger 
acreage than both Indiana and Kentucky. She has an 
area of 78,840 square miles, making 50,457,600 acres. 
Kentucky embraces 37,680 square miles, equal to 24,115,- 
200 acres. The territorial period of Kentucky was days of 
young America's adventure; there was a vast wild timbered 
wilderness to subdue to create the fifteenth State of the Union. 
Kentucky's early population had their dissensions, that caused 
blood to flow and mingle with that of the aborigines. Daniel 
Boone was its first white explorer who placed his footprints on 
its soil and his name in its history. Indiana has an area of 
33,808 square miles, equal to 21,637,120 acres. Here in Indiana 
did the talented and brave Tecumseh place himself in the front 
to stay the white man's invasion of his home. Kansas is much 
larger than Tennessee; this State counts 45,610 square miles or 
29,190,400 acres. Tennessee was the home of the Cherokees and 
the Shawnees, both warlike tribes, who fought for their homes 
and their hunting grounds, and long held this Government at 
bay. Tennessee entered into the Union in 1796. just one century 
now past, as the sixteenth State of the Union. 

When settlements extended into Kansas and Nebraska, then 
came up the Missouri Compromise question, and slavery or free- 

425 



426 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

dom was the stake to be contested for, and the whole Union was 
the arena for the contest. The people sent their champions to 
the halls of Congress, to decide the momentous question of ex- 
tending freedom or slavery. 

To secure a foothold for slavery in the new Territory, slaves 
were run into it, by the friends and advocates of the institution, 
in charge of slave drivers and superintendents, all of them of a 
desperate order of the depraved, many of the slaves to be run out 
again through Iowa to freedom. The slaveholders and their 
Northern friends greatly desired to secure one or more slave 
States, so as to hold the balance of power in the national coun- 
cils, a power that they then possessed. 

Astonishing as it may now appear, the advocates and sup- 
porters of slavery in many of the free Northern States were so 
numerous that they controlled the States in the interest of slavery. 

With the aid of those free States, Iowa included, the inhuman 
and infamous Fugitive Slave Law was enacted by Congress on 
the i8th of September, 1850, a law that compelled every man to 
be a slave-catcher, as the officers under that law had the power to 
summons or call to their aid the bystanders, when necessary, to 
secure a slave, and all good citizens were commanded to aid and 
promptly assist the officers of the law under heavy penalty in 
case of refusal. 

Iowa's Representatives and their Senators, Augustus C. Dodge 
and George W. Jones, advocated and voted for this degrading 
and unrighteous law. Senator Jones was the wealthy Jay Gould 
and the Chesterfield, spoken of as uniting with Mr. Green and 
the island hero, Johnson, to deprive Sailor I of my hard-earned 
mill and water power at Quasqueton in 1843. 

Senator Jones had his adventures and his mishaps after Terri- 
torial days; he was arrested during the Rebellion, for acts grow- 
ing out of letters written to his congressional friend Jefiferson 
Davis, President of the Confederacy, and was sent to a military 
fort as a prisoner charged with high treason, where he was con- 
fined for several months. 

Time passed on; 1854 arrived, the term of office of Senator 



ATTEMPT TO EXTEND SLAVERY. 427 

Dodge having approached its end, to fill the vacancy was in 
order, and the question of moment before the people was the 
extension or the limit to slavery. The advocates of slavery had 
been in the ascendency in Iowa, but at the dawn of 1854 the 
slavery advocates were considered to be on the wane, owing to 
the energy and combination of their free-soil opponents through- 
out the State. It was a plainly spoken and published question of 
slavery or anti-slavery. 

Under our laws and usages, the people expressed themselves 
through their Representatives and Senators in the State legisla- 
ture, and through a similar agency within the halls of Congress. 

A large number of the pioneer leading citizens of Iowa declared 
that they had long been misrepresented by the then Representa- 
tives and the Honorable Senators Dodge and Jones, and that 
they desired to man the ship of state with a more trusty crew, 
and no longer sail her as a pirate craft under the black flag of 
slavery, but under the Stars and Stripes of freedom. 

My diary says that this was the political situation when I made 
a landing at the Davenport levee in 1854, with a barge freighted 
with wheat from the town of Le Claire, when a delegation of Scott 
County citizens, headed by Professor Ripley of the Iowa Col- 
lege, stepped on board of the barge and informed me that the 
free-soil Whigs had nominated Sailor I as their State Senator; 
that I would not be permitted to decline, but that I must go to 
work with them and overcome the then Democratic majority of 
the district. 

My opponent was the widely known and talented Hon. J. A. 
Birchard, a wealthy retired farmer of Pleasant Valley, Scott 
County, Iowa, who controlled the granger element of that day, 
and who had served a term in the lower House; a formidable 
opponent for a poor sailor to throw his glove at his feet. The 
Sailor's excess of ballots numbered 381. 

Those pioneers who called on me and boarded my wheat barge 
had not conquered men, but they had done far more; they had 
conquered a wilderness, and I to their request responded 
" Amen! " We went to work with a will, and changed the com- 



428 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

plexion of the legislature from black to white ; but I soon found 
that reverse winds existed on the land as at sea; there was for 
many days a deadlock in the Senate. Sailor I considered it my 
duty to do that which others feared to do, take command and 
put the ship under sail. Trouble soon stepped on deck; three 
candidates for United States Senator were placed before the 
General Assembly to select one from; they were Mr. Augustus C. 
Dodge, Mr. Ebenezer Cook, and Mr. James Harlan. The votes 
that were cast and the days that passed were many, without a 
choice. Sailor I was instructed by a large delegation and a mam- 
moth petition issued by my constituents to support my townsman 
Mr. Cook, and I was also brought before a large public meeting 
and urged and ordered, but I declined to withdraw my support 
from Mr. James Harlan whilst he was willing to stand his ground. 
Although at one period my townsman lacked but one vote of 
being elected United States Senator, on the first ballot Mr. Har- 
lan received but four votes. Finally, through my obstinacy I 
gave Iowa and Congress one of their best Senators, and the first 
to make Iowa known throughout the Union and beyond, and in 
time all of my constituents said that I acted properly in disobey- 
ing their wishes. In after years the Hon. James Harlan, when 
on a visit to Davenport to talk to the people, said that Sailor I 
created a United States Senator. 

My good friend and townsman, Mr. Cook, was tainted with 
pro-slavery, and my solemn vow made at the funeral of the mys- 
terious girl on the north Atlantic's Bahamas was constantly be- 
fore me, and held me in check to face the right at all hazard and 
regardless of favor or results. 

Whilst the senatorial contest waged, the Dubuque " Tribune " 
published as follows: 

" Mr. Fulton : We have read Mr. Fulton's defense to his con- 
stituents for supporting the regular anti-Nebraska nominee, pub- 
lished in the ' Gazette ' of the 9th, with great pleasure and warm 
admiration. After Mr. Cook had fallen behind, and according to 
the rule previously established had been laid aside, a petition was 
gotten up in Davenport, instructing him to vQte for Mr, Cook 



ATTEMPT TO EXTEND SLAVERY. 429 

for United States Senator. But he had the integrity to stand firm, 
and informs his constituents that he did not crave the position 
he at present occupies, and if they want him to do anything that 
he does not consider honorable he will willingly resign the sta- 
tion to more pliant hands. We have placed a white mark ' for- 
nent ' the name of A. C. Fulton, Esq., of Scott." 

And the Davenport '' Gazette " said: " Mr. Fulton is a man of 
independent mind; once convinced that he is right and popular 
sentiment has little influence upon him." Both journals are now 
before me. 

My diary says that thirty-five summers and thirty-five winters 
had passed when the rising generation desired to learn of the 
Kansas and Nebraska struggle and the part that Sailor I took 
in Freedom's cause; for this purpose a reporter of the Daven- 
port " Democrat " called on me to collect facts respecting the 
days of 1854, and published as follows: 

" AN OLD-TIME DEADLOCK. 



" It Lasted Five Days and Then A. C. Fidton Voted for Mr. Fisher 

and Broke it. 

" ' Ah ! distinctly I remember,' said A. C. Fulton to-day, drop- 
ping unconsciously into poetry and song! ' It was in the bleak 
December in the year of '54; thirty-five years ago, and more; 
that we had a deadlock in the Iowa legislature same as now. 
Thirty-five — no, le's see. I should have said January, '54. Well, 
anyhow there were fifteen anti-Nebraska Democrats on one side 
and fifteen Whigs on the other, of whom I was one. We sat 
there at Iowa City and glared at each other for five days, and 
then I bolted. I voted for Mr. Fisher of Dubuque for speaker 
of the senate. He was a double-dyed Democrat, the father of 
our present city attorney — and oh! didn't they roast me when I 
came home here. I tell you they went for me till my hair curled. 
There are kinks in it yet. But I didn't care. I got the machine 
to working by my own little vote, and I don't believe the State of 



43<^ A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Iowa has ever been ashamed of the work that was done by that 
assembly.' " 

He was a very fair average reporter, for he got very near one- 
half of my talk to him printed correctly; but Sailor I have had a 
great respect for reporters since playing the reporter's part on 
Cuba's Island. 

Time continued on its course, and on February ii, 1896, the 
Davenport " Daily Times " added a page to Iowa's history by 
publishing as follows: 

" MADE THE LAWS. 



''Pioneer Legislators Gather at Des Moines to Renezv Old Friend- 
ships and Discuss the Days When They Played a Leading Part 
in Making History. 

'* Hon. A. C. Fulton left for Des Moines this morning to attend 
the meeting of the Pioneer Lawmakers' Association of Iowa, 
which will be held at the capital to-morrow. The association 
is composed of members of the early legislatures, and it is safe to 
say that there will be few present who can point to earlier service 
as a State legislator than Davenport's representative at this 
gathering. Mr. Fulton came to Davenport in 1842, and was 
elected to the senate of the fifth general assembly from Scott 
County in 1854. The fifth general assembly convened at Iowa 
City on December 4, 1854, and adjourned to meet again on 
January 26, 1855. An extra session was also held, the legislature 
being convened again on July 2, 1856. Scott County's repre- 
sentatives in the lower branch of that assembly were Amos Witter 
and Andrew J. Hyde, the latter being a resident of Davenport at 
the present. Mr. Fulton was elected to the Iowa Senate by the 
anti-slavery Whigs by a large majority. There was a deadlock 
in the senate for one week and it was broken by the action of 
Mr. Fulton in voting for a Democrat as president of the senate. 
He showed considerable firmness at various times when impor- 
tant questions were pending in the senate, and this trait of 



ATTEMPT TO EXTEND SLAVERY. 431 

character was forcibly demonstrated when, against the almost 
unanimous petition and request of his constituents, he was instru- 
mental in securing the election of Hon. James Harlan as United 
State Senator from Iowa. Mr. Fulton has a vivid remembrance 
of the important questions and measures that engrossed the pub- 
lic mind in the days of the early history of the State and his 
reminiscences are given in a very entertaining manner. Al- 
though advanced in years, he still takes an active interest in pub- 
lic questions, and will undoubtedly take a prominent part in the 
proceedings at the meeting of the Pioneer Lawmakers of the 
State. Mr. Rohlfs attended the preceding meeting of the Pio- 
neer Lawmakers' Association, but, being slightly indisposed, will 
not be able to participate in the deliberations of the present ses- 
sion and meet old-time legislative friends. 

'' However, Mr. Fulton is a host in himself and will ably up- 
hold Scott County end at the meeting which assembles at Des 
Moines to-morrow." 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

A CONDENSED CHAPTER OF LOCAL EVENTS TAKEN FROM THE 

DAVENPORT " REPUBLICAN " AND MY DIARY THE CAPACITY 

OF THE WILD MAN OF THE FOREST AND THE PLAINS. 

XT EW YEAR'S DAY of 1896 was close approaching, and the 
good editor of the Davenport '* Daily Republican " re- 
quested Sailor I to jot him down from my diary a few of the 
occurrences in Davenport and Iowa's early days, to lay before 
the readers of the *' Republican," which published as follows: 

" FOUNDING AND BUILDING OF THE CITY OF DAVENPORT. 

" Graphically Described by Hon. A. C. Fulton, the Oldest Resident 
Now Living Here — Personal Experiences and Adventures — How 
the First Saw Mill, Grist Mill, Masonic Hall, Hotel, Flatboat, 
Steamboat, Street Car Line, and Steam Railroad Were Built — A 
Chapter Out of a Full Life. 



" Editor of the Davenport ' Republican ' : 

" Good Sir: You request me to jot down some of the occur- 
rences that took place in Territorial days. You say name citizens, 
factories, boats, mills, commerce, and passing events. 

** I will take from my diary a few early occurrences. If all 
momentous acts were combined they would form an interesting 
volume, but I must confine myself to a single chapter of that 
volume of the past. To create active, moving life in a wilder- 
ness requires courage and untiring industry, 

" To speak knowingly of the past, the speaker must be an actor 
present at the time. The hearsay forty count for less than the 
single one who took an active part. My one chapter will present 

432 



A CHAPTER OF LOCAL EVENTS. 433 

but a meager portion of the part I took upon the stage of active 
Hfe during Territorial days, as many now present can witness. 

" When each and every man writes and presents the part he 
took to build a world, the volume will be complete, but it will con- 
tain a vast number of the positive and impressive letter ' L' 

" To save space, I will bring into my chapter most all of our 
active men of Territorial days. 

" Creation of a State. 

" It is not a small task to step in line and create a State. In 
1803, under Thomas Jefferson's administration, we purchased 
Louisiana territory, which embraced Iowa, from Napoleon Bona- 
parte, for the sum of fifteen million dollars. Iowa remained a 
portion of Louisiana Territory untih 1834, when it was annexed to 
the Territory of Michigan. In 1837 it became a part of the Ter- 
ritory of Wisconsin, and in 1838 it was created a separate Terri- 
tory under the name of Iowa Territory. Then on the 28th day of 
December, by a vote of its people, it became the twenty-ninth 
State of our confederacy. 

" Iowa, in its Wisconsin days, formed but two counties. 

**At one period the Mississippi was Uncle Sam's western 
boundary. Out of our purchase of territory from Napoleon we 
carved the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Kan- 
sas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Dakota, Colorado, and Oregon. 

" Davenport in Forty-two. 

" I was on deck when the first Governors of these ten States 
were inaugurated, and here in Davenport in 1842 I fell into the 
line of the empire as it westward rolled. At that date Davenport 
was but a frontier hamlet. It was incorporated in 1838. Rudol- 
pas Bennett was its first mayor; A. C. Donalson, D. C. Eldridge, 
Thomas Dillon, John Forrest, and John Litch were trustees, or 
aldermen. 

" When I arrived, in 1842, there was no factory save a small 
one to create fire water, down at the slough near the now lower 



434 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

sawmill, and there was the sole engine in the village, used to 
grind mash ; no steam ferry boat, only horse power engineered by 
an iron-framed veteran, John Wilson; and on the blufif, after you 
passed the Richard Smetham house, then the Judge Grant home 
at Tenth and Brady streets, no dwelling was to be seen on the 
prairie until you reached Hickory Grove, and but one house on 
the Dubuque road between the Judge Grant home and Allan's 
Grove. 

'' The main farming settlement was on the eastern road through 
Pleasant Valley on up to the Wapsipinicon river, and to intercept 
that trade I erected the two-story brick now standing in good 
condition on the northeast corner of Rock Island and Second 
streets, and now owned by H. Frahm. That building was built 
in a timothy field owned by the renowned Antoine Le Claire. It 
was the first building on the east side of that street. The well- 
known frontier brickmaker and bricklayer, Henry Leonard, long- 
time sheriff of Scott County, was the brickwork contractor, 
assisted by the well-known Joseph and Charles Hebert and Jo- 
seph Motie. The veteran stone mason and gardener, John Evens, 
living on East Sixteenth Street, did the stonework. At the same 
time with those contractors, on the same lot east of it, I erected 
a two-story brick warehouse, now demolished. I speak of those 
humble buildings for the purpose of naming their worthy archi- 
tects, all of whom have departed from off the earth, save John 
Evens, and also to tell our now people that the upper story of 
that warehouse was the first Odd Fellows' hall in Iowa, and there 
the Hon. James Thorington, William Collins, and others met in 
session and they permitted the Freemasons of Scott County and 
their friends of other counties to there assemble and make it their 
first Masonic home. 

" Early Literary Society. 

" Captain Hawley, Mr. Noble of Blue Grass, Rev. Z. Gold- 
smith of the Episcopal church, and other Masons did there con- 
vene. After their removal to better quarters this rough ware- 



A CHAPTER OF LOCAL EVENTS. 435 

house was the first arena used by Davenport's Literary and De- 
bating Society, whose skill and eloquence would have done credit 
to the American Senate or the British House of Lords, and they 
were applauded by the astonished natives. 

" The first brick pavement put down in Davenport was at that 
corner. On Rock Island Street north of this once store are now 
standing three small dwellings that I erected in 1842. The Hon. 
John Davies was one of the practical carpenters. I erected them 
for my coopers, Messrs. Kroy, Kettering, and Guy. Mr. Guy 
was the grandfather of our now citizens of that name, and Mrs. 
Kroy, after more than fifty years, now owns the snug home, and 
on this tract of land I erected my cooper shop where the above 
three secured their homes without paying one cent, but through 
their work received several hundreds of dollars in addition. 

** Great Pork-packing Plant. 

" My pork-packing house was at the northeast corner of Perry 
and Front streets, where the Armour beef-packing house now 
stands. 

*' After I abandoned this packing house a portion of it was fit- 
ted up for the widely known editor, Alfred Sanders, and his 
printer associate, Levi Davis, as the home of the Davenport 
* Weekly Gazette.' At this same period the firm of Burrows & 
Prettyman were in the pork-packing business, and packed about 
twice the number of hogs that I did. I have noticed the count 
of the pork output since Burrows & Prettyman and my days. In 
1844 we packed a larger number of hogs than has ever been 
packed in Davenport during one season since that date. That 
year I made a contract with Lyon & Co. of Rock Island for pork 
and wheat, as they might procure it, and paid the firm $4700 for 
those produces shipped to me by wagons and sleds over the ice 
bridges of the river. This western movement has not been re- 
peated since 1844. At that day there was no Chicago or eastern 
outlet and market for pork, corn, and wheat. The early farmers 
had to put their corn into pork to get any money. Corn sold 



436 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

from i8 cents up to 25 cents per bushel, and I have purchased 
thousands of bushels of good wheat below 35 cents per bushel, 
and lost money on some of it. Most of the time pork of first 
quality was sold at less than $3 per hundred, dressed weight, pre- 
vious to 1846. I have purchased hundreds of good and well- 
dressed hogs at $2 per hundred, and further, eggs were sold at 
5 cents per dozen, good butter at 8 and 10 cents per pound, quails 
at 37 cents per dozen; venison, antelope, bufTalo, and bear meat 
was sold at 5 to 10 cents per pound. Wild and tame turkeys, 
wild geese and ducks at 5 to 8 cents per pound. Those were 
Territorial days. 

" First Flour Mill. 

" We had no mills in Davenport, and with thousands of bush- 
els of wheat in store, we sometimes had not a barrel of flour for 
sale at any price, for frequently when the river's ice was on the 
run, and the little mill in Pioneer Sears' saw-mill loft at Moline 
could not be reached, a flour famine has taken place, and a bak- 
ing of flour has been borrowed by Davenport's upper ten. Many 
fine teams of horses and their whole outfit went to the river's 
bottom when the ice was not secure; this loss on some was almost 
ruinous. 

" We had at Rockingham, five miles below Davenport, one 
pair of three-feet burr millstones, also in a saw-mill loft; the 
sawing department was abandoned, but they were constantly 
breaking up or breaking down, and could not supply two 
counties. 

'* The embryo city of Rockingham was founded by the enter- 
prising and never-tiring Samuel Sullivan, and it would this day 
be the county seat of Scott County, and have its city hall and a 
courthouse if we had not sent up to Dubuque and procured four 
sledloads of contraband voters to settle the long and hard-con- 
tested county-seat question. I saw that the flour famine had its 
remedy. I called, by publication, a citizens' meeting at the post 
office in the basement of the Le Claire House, now the west end 
of the new Newcomb block, opened a book for subscriptions, 



A CHAPTER OF LOCAL EVENTS. 437 

headed the Hst with one thousand dollars to build a merchants' 
flour mill, with not less than three pair of large French burr mill- 
stones, to be located on the river where we could ship by boat, 
and to cost not less than ten thousand dollars. After twelve 
o'clock at night the meager sum subscribed would not have pur- 
chased ground and built the boiler house. 

" DHHciiltics of Enterprise. 

*' I had visited the best mills in Pennsylvania, noted down ma- 
chinery and construction, and could speak and act knowingly. I 
then proposed to take the one-half interest in a good merchant 
mill if the town people would provide for the other half. The 
chairman, James Bowling, said that insured the erection of the 
mill. Adjourned, to meet the coming evening, to put money in 
trust and start the work. The morrow evening arrived but very 
little money came with it, and all was gloom. I immediately 
said to the meeting and to Mr. Le Claire, that if he would sell me 
128 feet front on the river at Perry Street for the price he named, 
eight hundred dollars, that I alone would build the mill as spoken 
of, on which all with one voice cried, " You can't do it." I could 
but tell them that resolution was omnipotent. 

" The next morning I took men onto my 160-acre timber tract 
in Illinois, back and above Moline, to cut big trees, to make tim- 
ber and lumber for the mill. It was hastened under roof. Israel 
Hall, now in Davenport, put on the roof with oak shingles that 
I made out of Illinois logs, and the frontier bricklayer, D. C. 
Eldridge, who erected the first brick house ever built in Daven- 
port, built the very superior smokestack; all the balance of the 
work was done by the day. After I had completed the building 
and a portion of the machinery was on hand, Messrs. Burrows, 
Prettyman & Green of New York, purchased it at first cost. My 
object was but to secure the mill. The greatest curiosity con- 
nected with Albion mills was that I did not have, as dozens now 
in Davenport can witness, any architect, superintendent, mill- 
wright, or engineer in sight, but when the new owners brought 
them on the ground, they pronounced all in good shape. 



438 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

" The Second Flouring Mill. 

" The Davenport men and the farmers said they were sorry I 
sold the mill, and they sent a committee to ask me to build the 
second mill. The committee was Dr. Witherwax, Charles Les- 
lie, and James Bowling. I said, ' Yes, get me the ground at the 
same rate west of the Albion mill.' ' When shall we tell the 
owner of the ground that you will commence the work? ' ' Tell 
him on to-morrow morning at six o'clock.' I within two hours 
engaged men to dig basements and foundations, and they were 
at work on the morrow. I again went to the woods to cut tim- 
ber; I alone, without a single man, rafted the lumber from Le 
Claire and Moline, both pine and oak. I now give you and the 
world the names and sayings of many of the renowned pioneers 
of Davenport. Unknown to me and my workmen they prepared 
a splendid dinner, — beef, venison, ducks, quails, prairie chickens, 
— invaded the mill, spread out the work benches for tables, and 
here comes the result, taken from the Davenport ' Gazette,' as 
reported by Editor Alfred Sanders in his ' Gazette ' of January 
20, 1848, which is now on file in the city, as follows: 

" ' Citizen Fulton Banqueted. 

Last Saturday was a busy and happy day for Davenport — 
one from which may be dated a new era in the history of our 
thriving town ! Upon that day was first heard in Davenport the 
welcome note of steam as applied to manufacturing. Fulton's 
steam mill was put in operation and found to succeed in every 
department. Five months and twenty-two days since, the foun- 
dation was dug to the mill, and two weeks later the carpenters' 
work was commenced. At that time the brick were yet unmade, 
the timber growing in the forest, and the stone reposing in the 
quarry. Although absent a portion of the time and under con- 
tract to finish the extensive brick mill of Messrs. Burrows & 
Prettyman, adjoining, yet with an energy worthy of a descendant 
of Robert Fulton, A. C. Fulton has, within six months from the 
commencement, got his mill in successful operation, 



A CHAPTER OF LOCAL EVENTS. 439 

" ' The building is 60 X 85 feet , four stories high, and built 
throughout in the most substantial manner. The boiler house 
is 50 X 27 feet. 

" 'All the Delicacies. 

Much credit is due to the men who labored so assiduously 
with Mr. Fulton in hastening the completion of the mill. The 
millwright work was executed under the direction of Mr. W. J. 
Arner of St. Louis, the engine and boilers put up by Mr. Abner 
P.. Cluflf, and the stones dressed and put in operation by Mr. A. 
Nugent, the miller of the establishment. The machinery and 
castings were made at the Eagle foundry of Messrs. Garrison & 
Brother of St. Louis, and the millstones by G. & C. Todd of St. 
Louis. 

" * In honor to the enterprise exhibited by Mr. A. C. Fulton 
and the exertions of his men, the citizens determined on Satur- 
day morning to give them a public dinner, and with a celerity 
scarcely excelled in the speedy completion of the mill, by three 
o'clock had every viand to tempt the palate arranged on a tem- 
porary table in the second story of the mill. Turkeys, chickens, 
hams, tongues, etc., and pies, cakes, biscuits made from the new 
flour, graced the table in abundance. Mr. Fulton and his work- 
men took their place at the table, when three cheers were given 
the foremen. Mr. Fulton followed in a brief address, stating the 
embarrassments under which he had labored, and over which 
he had triumphed; alluding particularly to the immense barrier 
to the prosperity of Davenport presented by the lower rapids, 
hoping that all would unite their exertions to have the impedi- 
ments removed. 

" * So soon as he had concluded the citizens were requested to 
take their places at table, when the work of mastication began. 
Chickens disappeared as rapidly from the well-stored table as 
though Herr Alexander presided, and turkeys galvanized into 
new life walked off by piecemeal, while cakes, crackers, and bis- 
cuits, imbibing the electrical spirit, again passed quickly through 
the grinders! It was a joyous time and after between 200 and 



440 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

3CX) persons had dined, more than " seven baskets full " were 
left. 



" ' Some Clever Toasts. 

Judge Grant being called upon, gave a short speech. He 
stated that he had just arrived from Iowa City; previous to leav- 
ing that city a charter had been granted for the construction of a 
railroad from this point to Council BlufTs. Three cheers greeted 
this announcement. Mr. Hiram Price next addressed the 
assembly. In his remarks he stated that when the workmen first 
commenced the foundation of the mill, an old gentleman observed 
to him, " that he had always believed Mr. Fulton to be crazy, but 
now he knew it! " Mr. McCammon also addressed the people, 
when the following toasts were given, some of them accompanied 
by remarks and all followed by loud cheering. After which the 
citizens retired quietly to their homes well pleased with the after- 
noon's entertainment. 

" * By A. Sanders — A. C. Fulton and his men — May every 
revolution of the millstones add a dime to their wealth and a 
good deed to their lives. 

" ' H. Price — The Mill and the Dinner, both got up on the 
electro-magnetic principle, characteristic of the American peo- 
ple — May we never lack for either. 

" ' W. P. Campbell — Success to Fulton and his mill ; the first 
propelled by enterprise, the last by steam — May they continue to 
go until the father of waters ceases to flow. 

" * V. M. Firor — A. C. Fulton — The propeller of enterprise and 
contemporary with steam in Davenport — May he never lack 
fuel for his own boiler; while with iron nostrils and leaden bowels, 
may he whiten the earth with the flour of his zeal. 

*' ' J. Grant — The big gentleman at the other end of the table 
(A. Le Claire, Esq.) — May his shadow never grow less. 

" ' J. Pope — The ^tna Mill and its proprietor — May the 
former never repudiate for the want of wheat, nor the latter for 
the want of friends. 



A CHAPTER OF LOCAL EVENTS. 441 

'* * A. Sanders— Fulton's Steam Mill— The nucleus of a manu- 
facturing emporium. 

** * J. Parker — The rival steam mills of Davenport — While we 
most cordially award all due honor and praise to A. C. Fulton, 
the enterprising originator of both mills and the successful 
builder of this mill, may the only rivalship that shall hereafter 
exist between them be, which shall manufacture the best flour and 
deal the most liberally with the citizens of Scott and adjoining 
counties. 

"'W. S. Collins — A. C. Fulton, the pride of Scott County, 
the poor man's friend, the sole cause of two steam mills in Daven- 
port — May the tide of prosperity and the stream of fortune pour 
into his bosom till it shall overflow with joys unspeakable and full 
of glory. 

" ' H. S. Finley — May Mr. Fulton's profits in making flour 
equal his enterprise in building mills. 

" * V. M. Firor — Scott County, the mother of produce and 
supporter of toil; 'tis hoped that she will feed with a bountiful 
hand the sons of her soil. 

'' ' J. L. Davies — John W. Arner, the millwright of this mill — 
The promptness, expedition, and correctness displayed by him in 
this machinery entitle him to the patronage of every builder. 

" ' W. P. Campbell — Abner P. Cluflf, the engineer — May he, 
like his engine, ever keep up the steam of enterprise. 

" * W. P. Campbell — Aaron S. Nugent, the miller — May he 
keep himself as white and fine as the flour he grinds.' 

" Surmounting Obstacles. 

" The years 1842 and 1843 were eventful and busy years for 
poor me, a world to be created, and money and material short. 
I had to rob the night to lengthen day. In 1842 I undertook 
to create a water power that I fancied would eclipse that of 
Lowell, by marine walls and canal on the Mississippi's upper 
rapids. I made expensive surveys, took soundings, purchased a 
large extent of river front, also an island in the river and 



442 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

canal way through farms, paying as high as one hundred dol- 
lars per acre, as the Scott County records will bear witness, and 
at this same date, 1842, I was jointly with Messrs. Bennett and 
Lambert engaged in damming the Wapsipinicon River near the 
Indian line of 1837, in Buchanan County. On my first visit in 
August, 1842, to the works, I found the population of the county 
to number eleven, women and self included, — a small number to 
dam a river, build a mill, and create a city, — but this is outside of 
my chapter, in your ' Republican,' of the history of Davenport, 
and I must let it pass into oblivion; as a recital of Buchanan 
County's Oklahoma days would but harrow up and distress the 
feelings of your numerous readers it must be passed by. 

" All Trade, No Money. 

" In the thirties and the early days of the forties money was 
very scarce — it was trade all round, no money transactions, for 
money did not exist; a dollar was then as big as a car wheel. 
Some farmers with large cribs of corn, stacks of wheat and other 
grain could not procure money to pay their taxes, and some not 
even the money to pay their postage. But postage was not two 
cents then as now. For over twelve years in the ports of Charles- 
ton, Pensacola, and New Orleans I paid twenty-five cents' post- 
age on every letter I received, and twenty-five cents was paid by 
those I wrote to in the East and the West. There has been a 
change since Jackson was President. 

" First Flatboat Built. 

" In the fall of 1842 I built the first flatboat on the Mississippi 
above the Missouri River and freighted it with farm produce for 
the New Orleans market. The boat, cargo, and outfit cost me 
near $2000. It proved a total loss. Our veteran pioneer, David 
McKown, was supercargo. I had just previously shipped a like 
cargo by a steamboat, and received a bill claiming thirteen dol- 
lars and some cents, as the produce did not pay freight and 
charges. 



A CHAPTER OF LOCAL EVENTS. 443 

"The Albion mills whilst under repair were burned to the 
ground through a lighted candle being left in the bolting chest 
whilst the carpenters went to their dinner. The brick smoke- 
stack that D. C. Eldridge built alone remained, a towering monu- 
ment to the enterprising Burrows & Prettyman's great loss. 
After standing nine years it was toppled over by gunpowder. 
Beneath the ground this day remain the ponderous foundations 
of the Albion mill. I sold the ^tna mill to Messrs. Burrows & 
Prettyman at less than cost. They overloaded the light upper 
story, or loft floor, and crashed thousands of bushels of wheat 
through its lower floors down into the basement. After the 
crash they sold the machinery to Davenport & Rogers to be used 
in Le Claire's first flour mill. Mr. Burrows frequently said that 
Fulton's ^tna mill could make a barrel of flour cheaper than 
any steam flour mill ever built, and he was an expert. 

" I planned and fitted light and compact machinery, not spread 
all over the building to consume coal and labor. The simplicity 
of the machinery astonished the far-famed foundry men, Garri- 
son & Brother, of St. Louis. I was never afraid of my miller, 
engineer, or fireman stopping operations by a strike, for I could, 
and did, for days and nights, stand watch and perform my duty 
as engineer or miller, and I can this day perform those duties. 

" Safe of a Soap Box. 

" In estimating on the two mills I saw that I could make a large 
saving on the transportation of the vast amount of lumber to be 
used by rafting it from Mr. Sears' Moline water-power saw mill 
and Messrs. Davenport & Rogers' steam saw mill at Le Claire, 
where I had to procure it. The custom then was to haul it from' 
these mills by team, and I knew I could make a large saving by 
rafting it myself, for my finances were at a very low ebb for mill- 
building, as Mr. Jacob Eldridge, who then edited the Dunn finan- 
cial reports, can testify. When I entered on the herculean under- 
taking I had just $60 in my safe soap box in my store, the most 
secure burglar-proof safe ever constructed. 



444 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

" We had no banks at that day, save river banks and sand 
banks, not even an oyster bank. 

" Adventure on a Raft, 

" To name some of the old settlers of that period, I must men- 
tion an occurrence in my rafting experience, although it is awfully 
against poor me. One pleasant August morning, when the peep 
of day was wiping its half-opened eyes to rise from its couch, I 
set out on foot to reach Le Claire before all hands were engaged 
at work. I required no waste of money for a velocipede at that 
time — twelve miles was but a refresher to fit me for a day's work. 
I employed two men — funds would not permit a larger crew. 
We formed the bottom strings for a raft, and on the double-quick 
placed the lumber on them, then pinned the 31,000 feet of lumber 
on them. When the big task of 31,000 feet of lumber was placed 
in the raft by three of us, and our oars were rigged, the sun had 
bid this latitude ' good-night ' ; but a curtailed moon then 
stepped upon the ramparts of the sky to stand its watch — a pleas- 
ant night to float upon the rapidly moving water, but not a good 
night to sail. But when I proposed to my two men to ship with 
me, and offered double money (one of the men was a long-time 
river man), they in concert exclaimed, ' What do you take us 
for? You must be crazy.' The river man declared that he 
knew the rapids and that he would not ship at night and run the 
rapids for the gift of a steamboat. Especially on board of that 
raft, that I threw in a pile like cord-wood — no, not for Scott 
County. I then sent them for two other river men, who only 
said : ' What do you take us for? ' I told them and the crowd that 
were gazing on me and the raft, that the raft would go to Daven- 
port that night, and paid the men and went on board and ordered 
the line cast ofif. She glided off like a duck upon the placid 
waters of a lake. 

" Runs the Rapids Alone. 

" When I got to Spencer's Point two skiffs put out from shore 
with two men in each skiff; they were crossing the river to go to 



A CHAPTER OF LOCAL EVENTS. 445 

Hampton, 111., where they traded at a store. The foremost boat- 
man shouted to the other, ' Goodness, there goes a big raft with 
a single man on it!' It was Mr. Fenno's voice; then the rear 
boatman, who was R. Spencer, shouted, ' I will bet my farm that 
is Fulton; he is the only man in the county that would do the 
act. He is crazy.' Then Captain Hawley, in the forward boat, 
' There is not sufficient water in the river to drown him. I was 
told last fall when in New Orleans that he had been a common 
sailor.' Twice was I called ' crazy,' yet I safely landed that raft 
at Davenport. Being called ' crazy ' twice that day, I began to 
think that I might be demented, so I met our Dr. Burrows and 
told him that I feared I was getting crazy. ' Well,' said^the doc- 
tor, * if that is your opinion, then you are right, beyond a doubt.' 

" First Steam Mill in Muscatine County outside of the City. 

" In 1856, in connection with Mr. N. Fejervary, I erected a 
first-class steam flour mill (my fourth mill) at Fulton, now Stock- 
ton, Muscatine County. We had to change the town's name, 
as the post-office department could not give two offices in a State 
the same name, and one Fulton office then existed. This mill we 
rented to Burrows & Prettyman. The distance to transport coal 
consumed a large portion of the profits. The lessees had not the 
Mississippi River to ship bran and shorts to Quincy and St. 
Louis distilleries, and the machinery was sold for a small sum — 
a heavy loss; but no doubt it would have been yet greater, per- 
haps with the loss of life, had we not laid the corner stone with 
prayer, Deacon and Judge William Burrows officiating. 

" First Steamboat Launched in Iowa. 

" I must tell the world about the first steamboat launched in 
Iowa. It was an extraordinary boat for its size. When the 
pioneer man of iron and energy, Captain Wilson, was running a 
horse boat ferry at Davenport, I, in connection with Aaron 
Remer, a young man long in my employ, built at the south junc- 
tion of Main Street a steam ferryboat. Tlie curiosity connected 



446 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

with this steamboat was that no shipwright or engineer save my- 
self ever entered or advised the work. True, I had early experi- 
ence in sea-going vessels, in building, in sailing, in wrecking, 
and I was familiar with almost all kinds of construction, as I had 
and have built for self fifty buildings rating far above the average, 
thirty-nine of them in Scott and Muscatine counties, and I per- 
sonally worked on all of them in every department; never em- 
ployed architects one hour. When we commenced taking dimes, 
Captain John Wilson, who almost daily brought us before the 
magistrate's courts on charge of piracy, and invading his char- 
tered rights. I shook ofi the annoyance by selling out my inter- 
est to Mr. Remer on time, and the time has not yet arrived. Cap- 
tain Remer ran her a few trips up the Illinois River, and there 
fell in with our Captain Dalzell. The little boat exhibited its 
power by towing large barges over the rapids, and astonished 
Captain Dodge and others by passing them under way. Captain 
Remer sold the boat to Alexander Grant, a gentleman from Scot- 
land, who chartered it to Burrows & Prettyman to tow wheat 
barges from Comanche. They ran her on the rocks of the rapids 
and completely wrecked the good and greatly admired steam- 
boat. 

" First Hotel in Davenport. 

" The first hotel established in Davenport was at the corner of 
Front and Ripley streets, presided over by Mr. Edward Powers, 
in 1836. It was built by Colonel George Davenport and Mr. A. 
Le Claire. Mr. W. Claussen has marred its parlor and dining 
room by storing lime and cement in them. The opposite corner 
was imiversally known as brimstone corner, on account of the 
wet goods there sold by the glass. 

" Then in 1839 the foundation of the big Le Claire House was 
laid, and there the Prince De Joinville and suite quartered when 
visiting the new Western world in 1841. 

" In 1845 I Iniilt the building now standing west of the Woolen 
mills on upper Front Street, known as Gould's furniture factory, 
for a sash, door, and blind factory, for a Mr. King, but he soon 



A CHAPTER OF LOCAL EVENTS. 447 

went out of business; then in this building a Mr. Rowe, a resi- 
dent of Pleasant Valley, Scott County, a connection of one of 
our well-known city attorneys, put in machinery and manufac- 
tured barrels by steam power, the first establishment of the kind 
west of Chicago. 

"Davenport Becomes Metropolitan. 

" The ' Gazette ' of October 4, 1865, thirty years now past, 
says: ' Mr. A. C. Fulton presented to the city council a petition 
to grant him the right to build a horse railroad on Third Street, 
and it was referred to the street committee.' Then followed 
months of ofificial imbecility, the council claiming that Fulton de- 
sired to take the streets from the people. I could but tell them 
that I desired to let them retain the streets, but if they chose they 
could ride over them cheaper, and with greater comfort in my 
cars ; but they could not see until a small removal of officials was 
made. They said a street road was big property, but they re- 
fused to take stock when solicited. Then I had a long and tire- 
some work alone to collect the then vast sum necessary to con- 
struct the line, purchase horses, cars, and stable grounds; and I, 
at my own cost, had to journey to Philadelphia to secure Con- 
tractor Hathaway, who had just completed London's first horse 
railway, and also to get financial aid. 

'' Time rolled on; it would not tarry; 1867 announced its pres- 
ence, and the Davenport City Railway Company was organized, 
extending from the east to the west end of the city. 

" The record says: ' The first directors were A. C. Fulton, John 
L. Swits, Ira M. Gififord, Thomas Scott, Joseph Shields, Charles 
E. Putnam, B. B. Woodward, H. R. Claussen, and James Arm- 
strong; A. C. Fulton, president. 

''First Street Car Line. 

" Many interesting pages could be written on this mule rail- 
road. The original charter said: ' Commencing at the east end of 
the city, and running to the west end.' As we had not immediate 



448 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

money for the entire length of the line, we concluded to construct 
one section and put it in operation. An easy, get-along alderman 
interested West, had a change made in the charter at a council 
meeting to read, ' The work to commence at the west end and run 
to the east end of the city.' I commenced to put down ties at 
the east end of the city, when a western breeze came at me with 
great velocity, and informed me that the road would be forfeited 
unless I commenced at the west end. I informed the committee 
that I had commenced at the west end as the amended charter re- 
quired, that I had there planted my first stake of the work, and 
continued the survey, staking the levels on to the east end, and I 
was now putting down the ties and iron at the east end. The city 
attorney said that settled it. 

" I must mention two edifices that I erected in early days. The 
stone that is now in Mr. G. Nutting's mansion was in 1853 taken 
part out of the rock beneath the surface of Prospect Park, and a 
portion from the river bank south of the park, and a limekiln was 
constructed on the building lot in the hollow and the lime pro- 
duced from limestone taken out of the park grounds; the wood 
to burn it was cut in the woods within four blocks of the building. 

" When I built Mt. Ida, I made the bricks out of the clay of the 
basement and burned them with wood cut in the woods within 
three blocks of the building — some on the adjoining block. One 
midnight I visited the brick kiln and found the two firemen asleep 
and no whisky left in the jug, and the fire down and the bricks 
greatly injured to this day. 

*' How the Rock Island Road Was Made. 

" The most important portion of Iowa's history is her railroads, 
as each and every road is equal to a river that never freezes or 
is affected by a dry season. With this thought in mind, I, in 
December, 1842, and January, 1843, took soundings of the Miss- 
issippi River at the once Indian ford, immediately below the city 
waterworks, to ascertain if the river could be bridged. I noted 
the depth of the water, the nature of the bottom and the shore 
banks, made an examination of the land east to Chicago and west 



A CHAPTER OF LOCAL EVENTS. 449 

to Cedar River, and in 1845 published my report in a Philadelphia 
journal, which is now before me. I also called a meeting of the 
citizens of Davenport by publication, to meet me in the old 
schoolhouse on Harrison Street above Fourth Street, and hear 
me talk bridge and railroad. At the day of my talk there was not 
a cable's length of railroad west of the Allegheny Mountains. 
Johnstown was railroad's western limit at that day. Mr. Jacob 
Eldridge, now on Brady Street, was one of my audience. In 
1847, with the assistance of Mr. Van Deveer of Rock Island, I 
drew up a charter for a road eastward from Rock Island. The 
Illinois legislature granted our request. Time rolled on. I drew 
up a subscription list, solicited stock, got a few shares here and 
there, called meetings in every grove and at every schoolhouse. 
One meeting I must name, at Blue Grass. I requested Hon. 
Hiram Price to go with me; he was a good talker and we got 
thirteen shares taken. I considered this very fair, but on our 
journey home in the dark I ran into a deep washout and dumped 
our since congressman onto the ground, upon which he said I 
was an awful driver, that he would not make another journey 
with me for the State of Iowa. He dusted himself and got into 
the buggy cautiously and did not say much on the balance of the 
journey home. 

" A Breach of Faith. 

" I also held many — a great many — meetings to procure stock 
in Illinois. I now have the lists of stock; and Iowa furnished 
more money for that Illinois railroad than did Illinois; yet Presi- 
dent Cable has injured Davenport and the road he represents to 
a vast amount by moving the shops his company built here and 
every department to his town, and violating solemn pledges pub- 
licly declared. An investigation by men of ability and unbi- 
ased minds will exhibit the unnatural freak, with dollars to 
attract it. I claim the right to speak, for I furnished three hun- 
dred dollars from my light purse to purchase ground for those 
abandoned works, and others furnished many hundreds of dol- 
lars more. When I call to mind the vast sum that this road re- 



45^ A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

ceived through its grant of land, and the long and constant work 
1 periormed, as hundreds know, to secure that land, it causes me 
to complain. I drew up petitions asking Congress for each al- 
ternate section of land between the Mississippi and Missouri 
rivers, and for days and weeks I journeyed, exposed to storms 
and privations, to secure the land, holding meetings in every town 
and every schoolhouse, and constantly forwarding petitions to 
Hon. S. Leffler, member of congress. I paid for my team and all 
my expenses — never asked or received one dollar. Not that 
alone, but my twenty-eight shares of railroad stock, as some 
others, went to the eastern winds. Now come those to reap who 
never sowed. 

** Respectfully yours, 

" A. C. Fulton. 
" Davenport, December 31, 1895. 



" [Note: Hon. A. C. Fulton has written historical articles for 
New Orleans ' Bulletin,' Louisiana ' Advertiser,' Philadelphia 
' Ledger,' New York ' Ledger,' Chicago ' Times,' ' News,' and 
' Inter-Ocean ' ; scores of articles for the Iowa ' Register,' Daven- 
port ' Gazette,' ' Democrat,' and ' Tribune.' In the thirties he 
was interested in the establishment of the ' True American,' in 
New Orleans. His descriptive letters of travel in Canada, Cuba, 
and Mexico are marvels of information and condensed history. 
— Editor.] " 

If space had permitted Sailor I had many local events to place 
on the New Year's record of the Davenport " Republican " ; not 
for the people of this year, 1896, but for the distant coming gen- 
erations. One of those within the many spoken of, I would have 
said, that on reaching the hunting grounds of the Sacs and Foxes, 
and their Pottowottomie allies, I here found the most remarkable 
man west of the Father of Waters; he was a half-breed Potto- 
wotomie Indian, Mr. Antoine Le Claire; he spoke French and 
English fluently, as well as his own and several Indian dialects. 



A CHAPTER OF LOCAL EVENTS. 45 1 

He had on many occasions been United States interpreter. He 
was taught in many branches of learning by a French mission- 
ary priest, and later he entered an English school through the 
influence of Governor Clark of Missouri; he was the white man's 
peer in all that makes a man. 

When the Sacs and Foxes parted with their first Iowa lands, 
and established the treaty line of 1832, he was Uncle Sam's inter- 
preter. In that treaty one of the stipulations exacted by the In- 
dian Chief Keokuk, who was the dusky Cromwell of his day, was 
that Antoine Le Claire should have a tract of land one mile 
square at the foot, and a tract one mile square at the head of the 
upper rapid of the Mississippi River; on both of those tracts 
Mr. Le Claire laid off a town, which made him a wealthy man. 
He was sober and possessed no vices, but he was too liberal and 
kind; he went security and indorsed for the white man, to his 
great injury. The county records witnessed and published his- 
tory records and preserves the evidence of his useful and active 
life. Black Hawk, the warrior and diplomat, and Keokuk, the 
renowned orator who rose from the ranks to be a power of 
strength, and Antoine Le Claire, were giants in their day; sel- 
dom have three greater pale-faced men lived and communed to- 
gether in the walks of life, and been more noted in history than 
the trio here placed on my record. To recite Chief Black Hawk's 
strategy and bravery in protecting his Rock River home when 
attacked by West Point generals, and thrice his number of well 
armed and drilled whites, would require a large volume, if written 
and pictured up to life as acted. 

But the most galling and unkindest cut of all, came when the 
subordinate and plebeian Keokuk, whom he despised, was 
placed by the arbitrary white man over him, through Keokuk's 
diplomacy, as the head of his nation, to reduce him, a more than 
Hercules, to the lower ranks. 

Keokuk (Watchful Fox) rose from obscurity by force of 
talents; he was an orator without a rival within the Indian na- 
tions of his day, and like Tecumseh, it would have been difficult 
to find his superior in the white man's ranks. He was the white 



452 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

man's constant and reliable friend, and saved the scalps of many 
whites who possessed no compassion for the poor Indian. His 
well-timed words sparkled with brilliant light and power, con- 
clusive evidence that they issued from a powerful and pure foun- 
tain. His vivid talent was evident in every sentence and in every 
word. He possessed an oratory power that a Gladstone might 
envy; brave and generous in every act and walk of his eventful 
life; in person muscular and active; an athlete with a graceful 
form and fine features, and possessing the ability to control and 
govern the wildest of creation's man. 

When I made my journey of exploration in 1838, through the 
wild West, and arrived at St. Louis, Mo., this renowned Indian 
chief, Keokuk, the father of one of Iowa's cities, was there on 
official business with Uncle Sam. I was invited, and when I 
approached Chief Keokuk, he openly asked one of the officials if I 
was a brave. After being satisfied on that point, he extended to 
me his dusky but tapering fingered and delicate hand, with the 
dignity of a General Scott, and when it reached my rough hand 
the tapering fingers closed in gentle clasp, and lingered as though 
he was absorbing greatness through the grasp. And whilst I re- 
tained and felt the pressure of the hand of the greatest living 
monarch of the forest and the plain, my thoughts with the 
velocity of the lightning's flash rushed me back to my Mississippi 
canebrake couch, and my forecastle home, with my ration of 
hard tack, pork, and beans, tossed before me on the forward 
deck. 

The Pottowottomie, Antoine Le Claire, was one of my ear- 
liest associates in business transactions on the frontier; I had ex- 
tensive dealings with him; as a record I desire to name one of 
them: I purchased from him an extensive tract of land, what is 
known as East Davenport, embracing the now Democrat Farm, 
the waterworks and sawmill property, and extending north to 
Oakdale Cemetery. East Davenport at an early day was an in- 
dependent city, with its city council, but the city proper had bor- 
rowed three hundred thousand dollars, and wasted full one-half of 
it, and in 1857 annexed East Davenport through an act of the 



A CHAPTER OF LOCAL EVENTS. 453 

legislature, to aid in paying the interest on the large sum of 
money already consumed, an unrighteous act! 

Antoine Le Claire was born December 15, 1797, at St. 
Joseph, Mich.; his father was a Canadian Frenchman; his mother 
a granddaughter of a Pottowottomie chief. At that period the 
red man was the possessor of the vast northwest; but few whites 
mingled with them; they were the monarchs of all they surveyed. 
In 1814 Le Claire pushed westward to the Mississippi River, and 
Colonel George Davenport told me that he first sighted him when 
a boy, paddling a canoe on Rock River, near where Peoria now 
stands, with another Indian boy, both wrapped in their Indian 
blankets. 

Mr. George Davenport was born in 1783; when in his seven- 
teenth year he went to sea, and was a sailor during four years; 
then he enlisted in Pennsylvania as a soldier. He landed on the 
island of Rock Island on the tenth day of May, 1816, as the armv 
sutler; Colonel Lawrence in command of the troops, who imme- 
diately went to work cutting timber on the island to build a fort 
for their protection against the Sacs and Foxes, and their allies 
the Pottowottomies, who had been goaded by the white settlers 
to frenzy; even their growing corn having been plowed up by 
the white invaders. 

This fort was called Fort Armstrong, named after General 
Armstrong; then, in 1832, came the Asiatic cholera, to carry to 
their graves one-half of the garrison's forces. 

In 1830 Mr. George Davenport journeyed to the capital at 
Washington, to endeavor to induce the Government through the 
President and Secretary of War, to deal friendly with Black 
Hawk and his tribe, and appropriate a few thousand dollars to 
pay for their lands, damage, and friendship, Init President Jack- 
son treated Mr. Davenport with haughty contempt, and he re- 
turned to the frontier disgusted. 

Then came the noted battle of the Bad Ax; no, not a battle, 
but a massacre, where hundreds of women and little children were 
shot to death in their camp and on their retreat, and other hun- 
dreds perished from cold, starvation, and drowning in the streams 



454 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

that they attempted to swim or ford in their flight from rifle 
balls; yet, in concert with England and the Hessians, we with 
horror cry, Turkish Armenia ! 

In time, when the city of Davenport, la., was founded, it was 
named Davenport in honor of Mr. George Davenport, for his 
worth and business energy. 

Mr. George Davenport the sailor, soldier, and the frontier ad- 
venturer, was stricken down by the hands of assassins and rob- 
bers, when alone in his own house on Rock Island, on the Fourth 
of July, 1845, when in his sixty-second year of age. 

In 1820 Mr. Le Claire married the daughter of the chief 
Acoqua (The Kettle) at Peoria, 111. Sailor I, at balls of the 
upper ten, have danced French cotillions with Mr. Le Claire's 
Indian squaw, a lady of talent and refinement that would have 
graced more palatial quarters than the Western frontier 
furnished. 

Mr. Le Claire was Iowa's first justice of the peace, his juris- 
diction extended from Dubuque to Burlington. He was also 
Davenport's first postmaster in 1833. His acts of worth are re- 
corded on the national archives, and within the hearts of many. 

In 1858 Mr. Antoine Le Claire had the distinguished honor of 
being elected as the first president of the Scott County Iowa 
Pioneer Association. Then, in 1897, Sailor I was elected to the 
same honorable office by the veterans who subdued a vast 
wilderness. 

Sailor I do verily believe that the Indian Antoine Le Claire 
and his good and noble wife gave more time and more money in 
building up the Catholic churches of Iowa than any ten whites in 
the State; they, besides giving large sums of money, from time 
to time, gave to the church society of Davenport an entire block 
of ground in the center of the city of Davenport, containing four 
acres less half of the streets, and at their own cost erected a 
stone church on the four acres, on one front of which ground 
thirteen stores, built by the tenants, now stand, and pay a large 
ground rent and all taxes, and three other stores built by the in- 
come of the property pay large rents to the Catholics of the 
diocese. 



A CHAPTER OF LOCAL EVENTS. 455 

The second four-acre block on the bluff, with a brick church 
built on it, was given to a congregation ; the gift of paying prop- 
erty will support those churches to the end of time. Within the 
grounds of this last gift the noble twain were laid to rest after 
death by their friends and kin, but heartless pale-face strangers 
came on the scene and unceremoniously tossed the good and 
great from out of their sacred chosen tombs, to place their re- 
mains within a third-class lot of an extensive cemetery on the 
wide prairie that the Indian had given to the pale-face congre- 
gation; a tract of land sufficient in extent to entomb five thou- 
sand; but it matters not; they were but Indians, and Indians can- 
not be wronged in life or death. 

When they rested in their chosen tombs, hundreds who passed 
the sacred spot offered up unfeigned prayers to the great Su- 
preme for the worthy twain. How is it now, where once stood 
that humble monument in the churchyard corner? Naught but 
vacancy exists to distress the eye. 

The remains of the worthy natives should without grudge be 
returned to their desired tombs. Sailor I feel it a duty to aid in 
that direction. I stepped off the church ground as I had done 
when an invader and a spy in Cuba, and found the once location 
of the tomb to be over one hundred feet from any and all build- 
ings ; if there was no room, then demolish or move a church and 
give them back their tomb; kind Heaven would smile upon and 
applaud the act. 

Good reader, you say that an appeal should be made to the 
home clergy or Cardinal Satolli, to right the great wrong; I an- 
swer, it would be just as efficient to attempt to whistle down a 
Kansas cyclone. 

When off watch I must personally go to headquarters and 
knock at the gates of the Vatican, or forward this, mv appeal, 
to his Holiness Pope Leo XIII. , or his successor, to right the 
great wrong. 

And when within the Vatican, I will with hope and unfeigned 
meekness say. Please, please, give Antoine Le Claire, under 
whose tawny Indian skin rested a heart and soul of pure white- 
ness, back his tomb. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

A LARGE SLICE OF ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY IN A NUT- 
SHELL, DATING FROM THE WORLD'S CREATION DOWN TO THE 
YEAR 1897, TAKEN FROM MY DIARY. 

'T^ O the intelligent, active, and observing mind the history of a 
people, even the obscure and barbarous, cannot be unfolded 
in vain; their origin, social relations, and government teach a les- 
son in human nature. A life destitute of thought and useful 
action is as the furrowed path of a ship at sea; the water closes 
over it, leaving no trace of its once existence. 

Poor Sailor I swept the dust of ages from sacred and profane, 
ecclesiastical and civil history, and traced the lines of Herodotus, 
the father of profane history, whose works run back to the year 
703 B. c, and the Old and the New Testaments, presented 
me with ecclesiastical history, from all of which, if space 
permitted, the most instructive and interesting volume ever writ- 
ten could be produced, Holy Writ alone excepted. The work 
would embrace the primitive state of man and society, his 
gradual advance toward civilization, and a world of interesting 
wonders that would astonish a vast majority of the world's 
inhabitants. 

Our world was created 4004 years before the birth of 
Christ. Grandfather Adam died 3074 years b. c, in his 930th 
year of age, which exhibits the fact that the world and Adam 
were both created the same year. In the spring months of the 
second year, after Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden, Cain 
was born; this is the length of years by Hebrew and Christian 
count, but the Chinese and my African prince, Slashed-cheek 
John, place more than thrice that number of years as the time 
of man's appearance and continued existence, and the age of this, 
our world. 

456 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 457 

Noah and his family, who shipped on board of the ark, con- 
sisted of eight persons; the ark was a three-decker with bulk- 
heads, and floated on the raging waters for the period of eight 
months, when it was anchored on twin-topped Mount Ararat, in 
Armenia, where she rode at anchor for four months, when Noah 
stepped on shore to build up a new world. 

The deluge took place 2347 years b. c. Sodom and Go- 
morrah were destroyed by Heaven's fire 1897 years b. c, 
just the same number of years that have now passed since 
he birth of Christ. Moses, the leader of the Jews, was born in 
Egypt 1572 years b. c, and he was eighty-one years of age when 
he brought the Israelites out of Egypt, in 1491 b. c. 

In 1 184 B. c. Troy was taken by the Greeks and burned. The 
Assyrian and Egyptian kingdoms were founded 2216 b. c. 
Athens was founded by Cecrops in 1556 b. c. The outbreak of 
the Trojan war was 1193 b. c. Sparta was founded 1102 b. c. 
Solomon's Temple was dedicated 1003 b. c. In 753 b. c. Rome's 
foundation was laid by Romulus. Socrates was born 468 b. c. 
Plato was born 429 b. c. Cicero was born 106 b. c. 

The African Hannibal defeated the Romans in many hard and 
well-fought battles on their own territory in 218 b. c. Persia was 
one of the great empires of antiquity ; it was originally known as 
Shem; this great empire was founded by Cyrus the Great. It 
comprised Persia, Media, Babylonia, Syria, and Asia Minor, and 
his son Cambyses added Egypt. This conquest of Egypt by 
Cambyses took place 524 years b. c. 

Those early Persians took a great interest and pride in litera- 
ture and in educating their people in letters and in the useful arts; 
they taught the conquered Egyptians the arts and sciences, as 
well as letters, and gave to Egypt its early civilization, which, 
as is well known, attracted the attention of such men as Homer, 
Plato, and Lycurgus of Greece, and Egypt gave a Cleopatra to 
the world. Egypt was wrested from Persia by Alexander the 
Great. 

During the dawning greatness of Persia and Egypt, when they 
were building ships, mansions, palaces, temples, and great cities, 



458 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

the ancestors of England's kings, queens, and lords were located 
in the latitude of Norway, and quartered in caverns of the earth, 
and running around more than half naked, pinched by cold and 
hunger, and living on berries of the forests, rats, snails, roots, and 
occasionally, through good luck, the blubber of a walrus or a 
whale of the Northern Ocean, and they sacrificed human victims 
to please their gods. 

Ages, many ages passed, and they entered into agriculture and 
built houses and sailing vessels, and transported grain, hides, 
and other produce to the Hollanders and the Danes, who at 
that period had possession of the north one-half of now Ger- 
many. 

At this period the Britons of the North, all told, numbered 
some ten thousand persons, and when some of them were on a 
voyage they discovered the island, now England, which they 
thoroughly investigated and found it to be a fertile land in a 
much milder climate than their northern home, and also peopled 
by some ten or twelve thousand light-complexioned and light- 
haired people, who received and treated them with great kind- 
ness, and who urged them to remain in their land, but they had 
to decline the kind ofifer. Those navigators, on reaching their 
homes, made their discovery and kind treatment known to their 
people, upon which the whole nation or tribe resolved to build 
more vessels and sail to the land of fertility and light-haired men. 

The vessels were built, stores secured, and a prosperous voyage 
followed, and they landed in England unarmed and as welcome 
friends, as the light-haired natives greatly required their aid to 
check the Irish and Scotch, who were constantly making raids 
onto their island. 

Those two nations or tribes mingled in marriage and as one 
people during four centuries; they had increased in wealth and 
numbers, and were making fair progress in civilization when 
Julius Csesar, some fifty-five years b. c, invaded the island with 
a well-trained army of over ten thousand strong. He was met 
by stern and persevering opposition, and did not conquer the 
islanders until he returned to Italy and increased his army, and 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 459 

then he did not succeed in subjecting the whole island. After 
holding possession of his conquered territory for several years 
Caesar had to call his forces to his aid in Italy. 

The Scotch and Irish strengthened and invaded the Island, and 
the Britons called on the Saxons for aid; they came, but in time 
proved to be traitors, and turned their arms on the Britons, and 
overrun the Island. In time, a long time, peace was declared and 
the then three nations or tribes mingled as one people in har- 
mony, King Egbert having united the several factions in one 
kingdom and calling it England. 

The descendants of those then destitute and almost helpless 
Britons are now, in 1897, placing thousands of their then 
superiors, the Egyptians, in their ranks as soldiers, to be shot at 
as targets. 

To give England's full history during her long infancy would 
occupy too much of the space of my record. 

My diary says that England has been under the sway of seventy- 
five rulers since my Northmen shipped to the island. As bad as 
the English nation is and has been, she is the ancestor of America. 

The grand or great principle of all things was a subject of 
research by the philosophers of ancient Greece; Thales claimed 
this principle consisted of water; Anaxagoras of air; Heraclitus, 
fire; Democritus, atoms; Zeno, of God and matter. 

In A. D. 79, September 9, Pompeii was buried under a bed of 
lava which flowed from an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius; those sub- 
stances having parted with their heat on the journey, but a small 
portion of the unfortunate city was burned. 



SOVEREIGNS OF MOHAMMEDAN SPAIN. 

Ancient Dynasty. 

Abderahman I., 755 

Hixem I., 787 

Alhakem I., . . 796 

Abderahman II„ ,»,,,,»» 821 



460 

Mohammed I., 
Almondhir, 
Abdalla, 

Abderahman III 
Alhakem II., 
Hixem II., 
Syleyman, 
Ali, . 

Abderahman IV 
Alcassim, 
Abderahman V., 
Mohammed XL, 
Hixem III., 



A LIFE'S VOYAGE 



852 

886 

888 

912 

961 

976 

1012 

1015 

1017 

1018 

1023 

1024 

1026 

July 5, 181 1, at Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, a junta of 
leading citizens formally proclaimed the independence of Vene- 
zuela; then soon follows the revolution which gave her inde- 
pendence. 

The streets of London were first lighted by private lanterns 
in 1414. Those private lanterns gave light to London during 
the forty-five years' reign of Queen Elizabeth, and were burn- 
ing on the night of March 24, 1603, when she died. In 1744 
public lamps were put up; in 1820 gas was substituted for oil. 

In February, 1848, the well-known American chemist, Mr. 
Milton Sanders, a native of Ohio, visited London, and proposed 
to light up that city with our now electric light. As a test of its 
efficiency he exhibited his light by lighting up a large hall on a 
magnificent scale. 

In 1 501 African slavery was authorized by King Henry VII. 
of Spain, in Spain's South American and in all her colonies in the 
New World. Spanish vessels seized on Indians in Hayti, Cuba, 
and Florida and shipped them to Spain as slaves; but they pre- 
ferred death to slavery. 

The slavery line run between Pennsylvania, and Maryland, and 
Virginia, was commenced in December, 1785. It extended 244 
miles due west. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 461 

Iri 1533 Henry VIII. was made the head of the English 
church. 

Delegates representing twelve colonies, called the Continental 
Congress, assembled in Philadelphia, September 5, 1774. The 
action there taken was the origin of the American Union. 

During the year 1700 the growth of cotton was introduced into 
South Carolina, and in 1701 rice was cultivated. 

The United States House of Representatives alone possesses 
the power of introducing bills for the levying of taxes; all laws 
applying to taxes have to originate in the House. 

William Shakspere was born in England in 1564; died in 1617, 
aged 53 years. 

THE SLOPE OR FALL OF RIVERS. 

Those flowing into the Mississippi from the east average three 
inches per mile, those from the west average six inches per mile. 

The average descent of the Missouri after it has left the moun- 
tain is one foot per mile. The Des Moines from its source to the 
Mississippi is seven inches per mile. 

The Ohio in its length is five inches per mile. The Mississippi 
from the Ohio to the Gulf has a fall of but 2^ inches to the mile. 

William Penn died in England in 1718, when the common- 
wealth of Pennsylvania purchased from his heirs all his claims 
to that State for $580,000. 

Enough of this; it is a conundrum to more than one-half of 
the world. 

The desire of Sailor I is to place on record facts and occur- 
rences of the long past, as well as those of the present world and 
day, for future generations. An interesting subject and task that 
has been greatly neglected by able writers and orators, number- 
ing thousands, who have exhausted their ink and vocabulary in 
creating and building up imaginary wonders and greatness, when 
the substantial and far more wonderful reality stood before them 
neglected and unseen. 

The task of too many writers and speakers has been to build 



462 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

up, or daub up, those whom they found already built up and 
towering far above the masses of mankind. 

Plutarch's task was to add height to the towering Greeks and 
Romans. Homer's task was to crown his imaginary deities. 
Hippocrates approached reality. Washington Irving's task was 
to create monstrosities. Dickens threw together many volumes 
of fiction, leaving his talents indebted to the world for facts. 
Cooper and others created phantom ships and puppet sailors, to 
reap a harvest of dimes through their exhibit, when the far more 
startling reality sailed before them, waiting for a master pen to 
picture their thrilling adventures on the ocean's billows. Har- 
riet Beecher Stowe's task was to create imaginary wrongs to the 
African, when facts existed that would eclipse her wonderful 
imagination. 

Sailor I found a poor, lonely wild girl, a native of a desolate 
island, reared and educated with the wild beasts and Indians of 
that island, and found a negro on a slaveship doomed to a 
life of slavery, and also found the cannibals of the Hawaii Islands, 
and have here placed their extraordinary merits before the world, 
together w^ith the past and the present situation of millions of peo- 
ple and occurrences of the long past, resurrected from beneath 
the dust of ages. 

To build a stanch and seaworthy ship when the timber, cord- 
age, and iron of the world are placed before you is a task of skill 
and greatness. But when the task is to build a like ship from the 
wreckage of wood, iron, and cordage, cast upon the seashore, 
then comes the tug of war. 

The past to many is a veiled obscurity, but man should not 
pass his life as does the brute that lives but to batten on the 
moor, and knows not of the changes of the moon. God and 
nature designed and bid man to advance and become something 
more. 

I now drop down through time and space as does the meteor 
from the worlds of stars above, to the now nineteenth century. 

There is to self, and should be to others, an interest in the 
past, especially in the actions, thoughts, and sayings of the wise, 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 463 

the good and great, within whose well-timed words freedom and 
greatness dwell. 

Good reader, I have now before me the Ulster County 
" Gazette," which says, " Published at Kingston, Ulster County, 
by Samuel Freer and Son, Saturday, January 4, 1800. Volume 
II., No. 88." 

I have almost daily, when on shore, ever since James Monroe 
was President, read one or more journals daily, and noted many 
of their items on my diary, and very few of the large number sur- 
pass in interest this little 18 X 24-inch '' Gazette " of 1800. Its 
business department is also well-rigged. I must take from this 
ancient journal and place on my record for future generations, 
some of the notices of that day, together with sketches of Euro- 
pean news, "A Day in Our Congress," ''The Burial of Our 
Washington," and " Verses Written by a Young Lady," all as 
follows : 

By virtue of a writ of iieri facias, issued out of the court of 
Common Pleas, for County of Ulster, directed and delivered to 
me, I have levied and taken the goods and chattels, lands and 
tenements of George Merrick, which I shall expose to sale, as 
the law directs, on Wednesday, the 22nd day of January next, at 
the house of said Merrick, in the town of Colchester, at ten 

o'clock in the forenoon. 

Peter Ten Broeck, Sheriff. 

Dated December 14th, 1799. 



FOR SALE. 

The one half of a SAW MILL, with a convenient place for 
building, lying in the town of Rochester. By the Mill is an in- 
exhaustible quantity of PINEWOOD.— And ALSO 

A STOUT, HEALTHY, ACTIVE, NEGRO WENCH. 

Any person inclined to purchase, may know the particulars by 
applying to JOHN SCHOONMAKER, Jun., at Rochester. 
November 13, 1799. 



464 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

WRITING, WRAPPING and BONNET PAPER, for sale 
at the Printing Office. October 12, 1799. 



LATEST FOREIGN. 
Received by the British Packet Princess Charlotte, from Falmouth. 



Letter from his Royal Highness the Archduke Charles. 

" Head QuartcrSy Denaberchinger, Oct 7. 

** The unfortunate occurences in Switzerland being already 
sufficiently known, I shall confine myself at present merely to 
giving the outline of them, and state the events which have taken 
place since. 

'' On the 25th ult. the Russian corps under the command of 
Lieutenant General Korsakoff, on the Limmar, and the column 
of Field Marshal Lieut. Horze, on the Linth, near Uznach, were 
defeated by the enemy. The former corps retreated by way of 
Eglisan, to the right bank of the Rhine, and the column of Field 
Marshal Lieut. Horze, on the 26th by St. Gall into the district 
of Voralberg. 

" Field Marshal Prince Suwarrow, was at Useren and General 
Aufifenberg, at Steig, on the 25th. 

" On the 26th, Field Marshall Lieut. Linken defeated the 
enemy, and took prisoners two battalions of 1300 men, with the 
whole of the Staff and other officers, and two stands of colours. 
On the 28th he advanced to Glaros; but not being able to open 
a communication either to the right or to the left he saw himself 
under the necessity to withdraw to the Grison country on the 
29th. 

" Field Marshal Suwarrow, and the brigade of General Aufifen- 
berg having advanced as far as Switz on the i8th arrived at 
Glarus on the ist of October, but not being able to efifect a junc- 
tion with any other corps. Field Marshall Suwarrow was obliged 
to march to the Grison country. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 465 

" Field Marshal Suwarrow has, however, according to a cir- 
cular letter which has been received this morning, defeated the 
enemy near Glariis and taken 1000 prisoners. At the same time, 
the column of the Imperial Russian General Rosenberg, made 
1000 of the enemy prisoners near Mutten, and took several pieces 
of cannon; the enemy's loss in killed and wounded on this occa- 
sion, was likewise very considerable. (Signed) 

"Charles Archduke." 



KINGSTON, January 4, 1800. 



i^^ The limits of our paper are too narrow this week for the 
great variety of foreign news received by the last mails — We 
shall however, lay before our readers short but comprehensive 
Summary. 

French official accounts under the Bernbearh of October 8, 
state that on the 4th, the Austro-Russians were defeated with the 
loss of several thousand killed, wounded, and taken. 

On the 5th the Austro-Russians were defeated at Glatus, with 
the loss of 1200 prisoners, besides a great number of killed. 

At this place there were 1400 Russians wounded, and 600 at 
Multen. 

The French Army of the Rhine about the 8th of October, de- 
feated the Austrians with the loss of 3000 killed and wounded. — 
Their loss, 1000. 



Two Spanish frigates bound from the Havanna, having on 
board upwards of three millions and a half of dollars, besides Mer- 
chandise, were taken on the i6th of October, by four British 
Frigates, and safely carried into Plymouth. 



PARIS, OCT. 13. 

Massena has demanded a contribution of 800,000 livres from 
the town of Zurich, one half payable in twenty-four hours, and 
the other in four days; a contribution of 400,000 livres has been 



466 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

imposed upon St. Gall. — ^The inhabitants of the Canton of Zurich 
are required to declare all the money merchandise and effects 
which they may have belonging to the Austrians and Russians. 

Oct. 14. Buonaparte and Berthier are in France, at the very 
moment when the fame of their triumphs arrived at Paris, they 
disembarked at Frejus. It appears that he was afraid of being 
taken by the English had he attempted to land at Toulon, and in 
consequence preferred landing at Frejus. The frigate in which 
he came was escorted by two vessels. 

On reaching the shore Buonaparte and all those who accom- 
panied him, fell down and kissed the land of liberty. 

Buonaparte and Berthier have not arrived alone from the banks 
of the Nile; they were accompanied by Generals Lasles, Mor- 
mons, Murat, Andicosse and citizens Mons and Bertholet. They 
have left the army in Egypt in a most satisfactory state. Moreau 
is in Paris. 



AMERICAN CONGRESS. 

TUESDAY, December 10. 

The hour having arrived which the President appointed, Mr. 
Speaker, attended by the members present, proceeded to the 
President's house to present him their address in answer to his 
speech on the opening of the present session; and having re- 
turned the President's reply thereto was read as follows : 

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives: 

THIS very respectful address from the representatives of the 
people of the United States, at their first assembly of the fresh 
election, under the strong impression of the public opinion and 
national sense, at this interesting and singular crisis of our pub- 
lic affairs, has excited my sensibility and receives my sincere and 
grateful acknowledgments. 

As long as we can maintain with harmony and affection the 
honor of our country, consistently with its peace, externally and 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 467 

internally, while that is attainable, or in war, when that becomes 
necessary,— assert its real independence and sovereignty, and 
support the constitutional energies and dignity of its government 
— we may be perfectly sure under the smiles of Divine Provi- 
dence, that we shall effectually promote and extend our national 
interests and happiness. 

The applause of the Senate and House of Representatives, so 
justly bestowed upon the volunteers and militia, for their zeal- 
ous and active co-operation with the judicial power, which has 
restored order and submission to the laws, as it comes with pe- 
culiar weight from the Legislature, cannot fail to have an exten- 
sive and permanent effect, for the support of government upon 
all those ingenuous minds, who receive delight from the approv- 
ing and animating voice of their country. 

JOHN ADAMS. 
United States, ) 

Dec. 10, 1799. ^ 

And then the House adjourned till to-morrow morning, 11 
o'clock. 

Mr. Josiah Parker and Mr. Robert Page, from Virginia, ap- 
peared on Monday, were qualified and took their seats. 

Mr. Speaker, on Monday laid before the House, a letter from 
the Secretary of the Treasury, inclosing a statement of his ac- 
counts for the year '99. Ordered to lie on the table. 

Messrs. Harper, Griswold, Otis, Gallahan, Powell, John 
Brown, Stone, Nott and Piatt, were appointed a standing com- 
mittee of Ways and Means. 

Messrs. Harper, C. Goodrich, Bayard, Marshall and Sewall, 
were appointed a committee, in pursuance of a resolution passed 
on Monday, relative to the revision and amendment of the judi- 
ciary system. 



468 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

SENATE. 

This day at 12 o'clock, the Senate in body waited on the Presi- 
dent of the United States with the following address, in answer 
to his speech to both Houses: 

TO THE 

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: 

ACCEPT, Sir, the respectful acknowledgment of the Senate 
of the United States, for your speech delivered to both Houses 
of Congress at the opening of the present session. 

While we devoutly join you in offering our thanks to Almighty 
God for the return of health to our cities, and for the general 
prosperity of our country ; we cannot refrain from lamenting that 
the arts and calumnies of factious and designing men, have 
excited open rebellion a second time in Pennsylvania, and thereby 
compelled the employment of a military force to aid the civil 
authority in the execution of the laws. We rejoice that your 
vigilance, energy and well timed exertions, have crushed so dar- 
ing an opposition, and prevented the spreading of such treason- 
able combinations. The promptitude and zeal displayed by the 
troops called to suppress this insurrection deserves our highest 
commendation and praise, and affords a pleasing proof of the 
spirit and alacrity with which our fellow citizens are ready to 
maintain the authority of our excellent government. 

Knowing as we do, that the United States are sincerely anx- 
ious for a fair and liberal execution of the treaty of amity, com- 
merce and navigation entered into with Great Britain; we learn 
with regret, that the progress of adjustment has been interrupted 
by a difference of opinion among the commissioners. We 
hope, however, that the justice, the moderation, and the obvi- 
ous interest of both parties will lead to satisfactory explanations, 
and that the business will then go forward to an amicable close 
of all the differences and demands between the two countries. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 469 

We are fully persuaded that the Legislature of the United States 
will cheerfully enable you to realize your insurances of perform- 
ing on our part, all engagements with punctuality and the most 
scrupulous good faith. 

When we reflect upon the late uncertainty of the result of the 
late mission to France; and upon the uncommon nature, extent 
and aspect of the war now raging in Europe; which affects ma- 
terially our relations with the powers at war, and which has 
changed the condition of these colonies our neighborhood, we are 
of opinion with you, that it would be neither wise or safe to re- 
lax our measures of defence or to lessen any of our preparations 
to repel aggression. 

Our enquiries and attention should be carefully directed to the 
various other important subjects which you have recommended 
to our consideration; and from our experience of your past ad- 
ministration we anticipate with the highest confidence your 
strenuous co-operation in all measures which have a tendency to 
promote and extend our national interest and happiness. 

To which the President made the following 

REPLY. 

Gentlemen of the Senate. 

I thank you for this address. I wish you all possible success 
and satisfaction in your deliberations on the means, which have a 
tendency to promote and extend our national interest and happi- 
ness and I assure you that in all our measures directed to those 
great objects you may at all times rely with the highest confi- 
dence on my cordial co-operation. 

The praise of the Senate so judiciously conferred on the 
promptitude and zeal of the troops, called to suppress the insur- 
rection, as it falls from so high authority, must make a deep im- 
pression, both as a terror to the disobedient and an encourage- 
ment to such as do well. 

JOHN ADAMS. 
United States, | 

Dec. 10, 1799, f 



470 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

WASHINGTON ENTOMBED. 

George Tozmi; Dec. 20. 

On Wednesday last, the mortal part of WASHINGTON the 
Great — the Father of his Country and the Friend of man, was 
consigned to the tomb, with solemn honors and funeral pomp. 

A multitude of persons assembled, from many miles round, 
at Mount Vernon, the choice abode and last residence of the 
illustrious chief. There were the groves — the spacious avenues, 
the beautiful and sublime scenes, the noble manshion — but, alas! 
the august inhabitant was nozu no more. That great soul was 
gone. His mortal part was there indeed; but ah! how afifecting? 
how awful the spectacle of such worth and greatness, thus, to 
mortal eyes, fallen! — Yes! fallen! fallen! 

In the long and lofty Portico, where oft the Hero walked in all 
his glory, nozv lay the shrouded corpse. The countenance still 
composed and serene, seemed to express the dignity of the spirit, 
which lately dwelt in that lifeless form! There those who paid 
the last sad honours to the benefactor of his country, took an im- 
pressive — a farewell view. 

On the ornament at the head of the coffin, was inscribed Surge 
AD Judicium — about the middle of the coffin, gloria dec — and 
on the silver plate, 

GENERAL 

GEORGE WASHINGTON, 

Departed this life, on the 14th December, 

1799, 7Et 68. 

Between three and four o'clock, the sound of artillery from a 
vessel in the river, firing minute guns, awoke afresh our solemn 
sorrow — the corpse was removed — a band of music with mourn- 
ful melody melted the soul into all the tenderness of woe, 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 471 

The procession was formed & moved on in the following 
order : 

Cavalry, j 

Infantry, r With arms reversed. 

Guard, j 

Music, 

Clergy, 

The General's horse with his saddle, holsters and pistols. 



Cols, i; 

Sims, § 

Ramsay, ^ 

Payne, li 



W* a3 Cols, 

^ I S Gilpin, 

^ f « Marsteller, 

Q I ^ Little. 



Mourners, 
Masonic Brethren, 
Citizens. 

When the procession had arrived at the bottom of the elevated 
lawn, on the bank of the Potomac, where the family vault is 
placed, the cavalry halted, the infantry marched towards the 
Mount and formed their lines — the Clergy, the Masonic Broth- 
ers, and the Citizens, descended to the Vault, and the funeral 
service of the Church was performed. — The firing was repeated 
from the vessel in the river, and the sounds echoed from the 
woods and hills around. 

Three general discharges by the infantry — the cavalry, and 1 1 
pieces of artillery, which lined the banks of the Potomac back of 
the Vault, paid the last tribute to the entombed Commander in 
Chief of the Armies of the United States and to the departed 
Hero. 

The sun was now setting. Alas! the son of glory was set 
forever. No — the name of WASHINGTON — the American 
President and General — will triumph over Death! The un- 
clouded brightness of his Glory will illuminate the future ages! 



472 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

CONGRESS. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 

THURSDAY, December 22. 

Mr. Goode from Virginia was qualified and took his seat in 
the House. 

Mr. Marshal with deep sorrow on his countenance, and in a 
low, pathetic tone of voice, rose and addressed the House as 
follows : 

The melancholy event which was yesterday announced without 
doubt, has been rendered but too certain. Our Washington is 
no more! The hero, the sage and the patriot of America — the 
man on whom in all times of danger, every eye was turned and all 
hopes were placed, lives now only in his own great actions, and 
in the hearts of an afflicted people. 

If, sir, it had not been usual, openly to testify respect for the 
memory of those whom Heaven has selected as its instruments 
for dispensing good to man; yet such has been the uncommon 
worth, and such the extraordinary incidents which have marked 
the life of him whose loss we all deplore, that the whole Ameri- 
can nation, impelled by the same feelings, would call with one 
voice for a public manifestation of that sorrow which is so deep 
and universal. 

More than any other individual, and as much as to one indi- 
vidual was possible, has he contributed to found this our wide 
spreading empire, and to give to the western world its independ- 
ence and its freedom. Having effected the great object for which 
he was placed at the head of our armies, we have seen him con- 
vert the sword into the ploughshare and voluntarily sink the sol- 
dier in the citizen. 

When the debility of our federal system had become mani- 
fest and the bonds which connected the parts of this vast con- 
tinent were dissolving, we have s^en hirn the chief of those 




A D 



AVEXPORT ELECTRIC-LIGHT TOWER. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 473 

patriots who formed for us a constitution, which by preserving 
the Union will, I trust, substantiate and perpetuate those bless- 
ings our revolution had promised to bestow. 

In obedience to the general voice of his country, calling on him 
to preside over a great people, we have seen him once more quit 
the retirement he loved, and in a season more stormy and tem- 
pestuous than war itself with calm and wise determination pursue 
the true interests of the nation and contribute, more than any 
other could contribute to the establishment of that system of 
policy which will, I trust, yet preserve our peace, our honor, and 
our independence. Having been twice unanimously chosen the 
chief magistrate of a free people, we see him at a time when his 
re-election with the universal suffrage could not have been 
doubted affording the world a rare instance of moderation, by 
withdrawing from his high station to the peaceful walks of pri- 
vate life. 

However public confidence may change and the public affec- 
tions fluctuate with respect to others, yet with respect to him 
they have, in war and in peace, in public and in private life, been 
as steady as his own firm mind, and as constant as his own ex- 
alted virtues. 

Let us then, Mr. Speaker, pay the last tribute of respect and 
affection to our departed friend. Let the grand Council of the 
nation display those sentiments which the nation feels. 

For this purpose, I hold in my hand some resolutions which I 
will take the liberty to offer to the House. 

" Resolved, That this House will wait on the President of the 
United States, in condolence of this mournful event. 

" Resolved, That the speaker's chair be shrouded with black, 
and that the members and officers of the House wear black dur- 
ing the session. 

" Resolved, That a committee, in conjunction with one from 
the Senate, be appointed to consider on the most suitable man- 
ner of paying honor to the memory of the man, first in war, first 
in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen. 



474 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

" Resolved That this House when it adjourns do adjourn to 
Monday." 

These resohitions were unanimously agreed to. Sixteen mem- 
bers were appointed on the third resolution. 

Generals Marshal and Smith were appointed to wait on the 
President to know at what time it would be convenient to re- 
ceive the House. 

Generals Marshal and Smith having waited on the President 
with the first resolution, reported, that the President would be 
ready to receive them at one o'clock this day. The House ac- 
cordingly waited on him. 

The Speaker addressed the President in the following words: 

Sir: The House of Representatives, penetrated with a sense of 
the irreparable loss sustained by the nation, by the death of that 
great and good man, the illustrious and beloved Washington, 
wait on you, sir, to express their condolence on this melancholy 
and distressing event. 

To which the President made the following answer: 

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives: 

I receive with great respect and affection the condolence of 
the House of Representatives on the melancholy and afflicting 
event in the death of the most illustrious and beloved personage 
which this country ever produced. I sympathize with you, with 
the nation and with good men through the world, in this irrepa- 
rable loss sustained by us all. 

JOHN ADAMS. 

A message was received from the Senate informing the House 
that they had agreed to the appointment of a joint committee to 
consider a suitable manner of paying honor to the memory of 
the man first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his 
countrymen, and that they had appointed seven members to join 
a committee for that purpose. Ad'd till Monday. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 475 



TO THE PRESIDENT OE THE UNITED STATES. 

The Senate of the United States respectfully take leave, Sir, 
to express to you their deep regret for the loss their country has 
sustained in the death of General George Washington. This 
event, so distressing to all our fellow citizens, must be peculiarly 
heavy to you who have long been associated with him in deeds 
of patriotism. Permit us. Sir, to mingle our tears with yours; 
on this occasion it is manly to weep. To lose such a man at such 
a crisis is no common calamity to the world; our country mourns 
her Father. The Almighty disposer of human events has taken 
from us our greatest Benefactor and ornament. It becomes 
us to submit with reverence to him, who " maketh darkness his 
Pavilion." 

With patriotic pride we review the life of our Washington, and 
compare with him those of other countries who have been pre- 
eminent in fame. Ancient and modern fames are diminished be- 
fore him. Greatness and guilt have too often been allied, but his 
fame is whiter than it is brilliant. The destroyers of nations 
stood abashed at the majesty of his virtue. It reproved the intem- 
perance of their ambition and darkened the splendor of victory. 
The scenes closed, and we are no longer anxious lest misfortune 
should sully his glory; he has travelled on to the end of his jour- 
ney, and carried with him an increasing weight of honor; he has 
deposited it safely, where misfortune cannot tarnish it — where 
malice cannot blast it. Favored of Heaven, he departed with- 
out exhibiting the weakness of humanity; magnanimous in death, 
the darkness of the grave could not obscure his brightness. 

Such was the man whom we deplore. Thanks to God, his 
glory is consummated; Washington yet lives upon earth in his 
spotless example — his spirit is in Heaven. 

Let his countrymen consecrate the memory of the heroic Gen- 
eral, the patriotic Statesman, and the virtuous sage; let them 
teach their children never to forget that the fruits of his labors, 
and his example are their inheritance. 



476 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 



PRESIDENT'S ANSWER. 

Gentlemen of the Senate: 

I receive with the most respectful and affectionate sentiments 
of this impressive address, the obliging expressions of your re- 
gret, for the loss our country has sustained in the death of our 
most esteemed, beloved and admired citizen. 

In the multitude of my thoughts and recollections on this 
melancholy event, you will permit me only to say, that I have 
seen him in the days of adversity, in some of the scenes of the 
deepest and most trying perplexities; I have also attended him 
in the highest elevation and most prosperous felicity with uni- 
form admiration of his wisdom, moderation and constancy. 

Among all our original associates, in the memorable League of 
the Continent in 1774, which first expressed the sovereign will 
of a Free Nation in America, he was the only one remaining in 
the General Government. Although with a constitution more 
enfeebled than his, at an age when he thought it necessary to pre- 
pare for retirement, I feel myself alone, bereaved of my last 
brother; yet I derive strong consolation from the unanimous dis- 
position which appears in all ages and classes, to mingle their 
sorrow with mine, on this common calamity to the world. 

The life of our Washington cannot suffer by comparison with 
those of other countries who have been most celebrated and ex- 
alted by Fame. The attributes and decorations of Royalty, 
could only have served to eclipse the majesty of those virtues, 
which made him, from being a modest citizen, a more resplend- 
ent luminary. Misfortune, had he lived, could hereafter have sul- 
lied his glory only with those superficial minds, who, believing 
that characters and actions arc marked by success alone, rarely 
deserve to enjoy it. Malice could never blast his honor, and 
Envy made him a singular exception to her universal rule. For 
himself he had lived enough, to life and glory. For his fellow 
citizens, if their prayers could have been answered he would have 
been immortal. For me his departure is a most unfortunate 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 477 

moment. Trusting, however, in the wise and righteous domin- 
ions of Providence over passions of men, and the resuks of their 
councils and actions, as well as over their lives, nothing remains 
for me but humble resignation. 

His example is now complete, and it will teach wisdom and 
virtue to Magistrates, citizens and men, not only in the pres- 
ent age, but in future generations, as long as our history shall be 
read. If a Trajan found a Pliny, a Marcus Aurelius can never 
want biographers, eulogists or historians. 

JOHN ADAMS. 
United States, 
Dec. 22, 1799. 



For the Ulster County Gazette. 



ON THE DEATH OF GENERAL WASHINGTON. 

BY A YOUNG LADY. 



What means that solemn dirge that strikes my ear? 
What means those mournful sounds — why shines the tear? 
Why toll the bells the awful knell of fate? 
Ah! — why those sighs that do my fancy sate! 

Where'er I turn the general gloom appears. 
Those mourning badges fill my soul with fears; 
Hark! — Yonder rueful noise! — 'tis done! — 'tis done! — 
The silent tomb invades our WASHINGTON!— 

Must virtues exalted, yield their breath? 
Must bright perfection find relief in death? 
Must mortal greatness fall? — a glorious name! — 
What then is riches, honour and true fame? 

The august chief, the father and the friend, 

The generous patriot Let the muse commend; 

Columbia's glory and Mount Vernon's pride 
There lies enshrin'd with numbers at his side! 



478 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

There let the sigh respondent from the breast, 
Heave in rich numbers! — let the glowing zest, 
Of tears refulgent beam with grateful love ; 
And the sable mourning our affliction prove. 

Weep! — kindred mortals — weep! — no more you'll find, 
A man so just, so pure, so firm in mind; 
Rejoicing Angels, hail the heavenly sage! 
Celestial Spirits greet the wonder of the Age! — 



Thus published the Ulster County '' Gazette," on January 4, 
1800. 

It will be observed that this ancient journal speaks of Napoleon 
and his wars of that period, with the allied powers, in 1804. Four 
years after the date and publication of this American journal, 
Pope Pius VII. journeyed to Paris to crown Napoleon Bona- 
parte Emperor, and Josephine Beauharnais Empress of France. 
Within the second four years the emperor divorced the good 
Josephine to marry Maria Louisa, Archduchess of Austria, in 
four months thereafter. Yes, Pope Pius did journey to Paris to 
see Napoleon crown himself. What a great influence power and 
greatness have over man, whether the man be Pope, king, or 
peasant I 

The ancestors of Germany's now proud kings did, in Ger- 
many's Catholic days, journey to Rome to beg the Pope to crown 
them King of Germany; but they have been ordered back to 
their homes to mend their ways, and return at a future season 
to receive an answer to their prayers, to be again refused whilst 
on their bended knees, and again ordered to tramp back to their 
country and their homes uncrowned, to call again. 

In August, 1802, Napoleon had been declared Consul of 
France for life; but his ambition would not permit him to rest 
short of the top of the ladder of fame and power. 

This is not the romance of romance, but plain, unvarnished 
historical facts, taken from an ancient American journal, pub- 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 479 

lished when Adams was President, and twelve years before 
George III. attempted through invasion and arms to be our king, 
and applied the torch to the congressional halls at Washington, 
where the above proceedings took place, and reduced the halls 
to ashes. 

My diary says that the second rebellion that is here lamented 
by the American Congress on December lo, 1799, was a renewal 
of the whisky war, in which the Pennsylvania Dutch whisky dis- 
tillers defied the law and shot down all officers of the law who 
dared to even approach their distilleries, or burn their houses 
and barns, or shoot down any citizen who would give them food 
or shelter. 

The first law taxing whisky was passed in 1791 ; the Dutch dis- 
tillers rebelled against this law, and armed themselves, and 
hoisted the German flag over their distilleries, and Washington 
sent troops and subdued the rebels, just as President Cleveland 
subdued the rebels in Illinois. Personal liberty was their cry; 
liberty to ruin. 

The first settlement of Dutch and Germans in Western Penn- 
sylvania was made in 1781, and the first whisky war took place in 
1794; most all of the whisky distilleries of that early day were 
small and chiefly constructed with cheap outfit, but very numer- 
ous, and ninety-five per cent, of them were owned by the Dutch 
and Germans ; they became the haunts of the vile and dangerous, 
and then, as now, the Dutch had a disposition to flock together. 
At first their number was few, but an increase took place from 
within and from without. The closing of the Revolutionary War 
added greatly and rapidly to their numbers, and worked a great 
change in their lives and actions, a change that was noted and 
commented on far and near. 

My diary says that some of those Germans were deserters from 
the English army, most of them about the close of the war, and 
some of them at the close of the war, and yet other Hessians re- 
turned from their German homes to America, after their dis- 
charge from the ranks; it was then said that England aided some 
to leave England for America to avoid supporting them; from 



480 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

what they had seen whilst in the English ranks, they thought well 
of America as a home. 

Sailor I worked in the fields with several Hessians, and per- 
sonally noted their acts and history voluntarily given, which em- 
braced both the whisky war and the Revolutionary War, with 
many heart-chilling horrors of cruelty and death. 

Sailor I can speak knowingly of the long past as well as of the 
present hour, for far more than the length of years by Holy Writ 
allowed to sink poor mortal man sits lightly on my brow. 

I lived and passed through more than fourteen years of the 
reign of Czar Alexander I. of Russia through the cessation 
caused by Constantine; the entire reign of Nicholas I.; the reign 
of Alexander H.; the reign of Alexander HI., and I am now 
counting of¥ and placing on my diary the years of Russia's sixth 
ruler of my day, Nicholas II. 

I lived and passed through more than a decade of the reign of 
Napoleon I. of France; passed through the entire reign of Louis 
XVHL, the reign of Charles X., the reign of King Louis Phillipe, 
the reign of Napoleon HL, and have witnessed twenty-six years 
of the French Republic. 

I passed through a decade of the reign of George HL of Eng- 
land, through the reign of George IV., the reign of William IV., 
and sixty years of the reign of Queen Victoria. 

I passed through a decade of the reign of Kamehameha I. of 
the kingdom of Hawaii; passed through the entire reign of 
Kamehameha IL, the reign of Kamehameha I II., the reign of 
Kamehameha IV., the reign of Kamehameha V.; through the 
reign of King Lunalilo, the reign of his majesty, King David 
Kalakaua; passed through the regency of two of Hawaii's 
queens; passed through the reign and the dethronement of Queen 
Lydia Liliuakalani, to give place to President Dole's Hawaiian 
Republic, in July, 1894, which I am now yearly entering on my 
over-seventy-years' diary. And may the energetic President's 
sunset be remote! 

Yes, in my day have three queens reigned in Hawaii, and 
seven dusky monarchs have there wielded their scepter, and have 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 481 

been placed within the royal mausoleum, with great sorrow to 
Sailor I. 

I have tipped my hat to General Lafayette, and to Mexico's 
first President, and Emperor Iturbide, and I was highly favored 
during the first administration of James Madison. Death may 
call him who wears a diadem and spare the man of the humble 
walks of life. 

The Fulton tradition and family genealogy says that in 1646 
Joseph and Robert Fulton were in Cromwell's army. Oliver 
Cromwell was born in April, 1599. In manhood he rose to sta- 
tion, and in 1647 with his army invaded and subdued Ireland's 
island. 

The Fultons being kindred to his mother, who had educated 
him in his youth, he ofifered them valuable stolen lands in Ire- 
land, as he had done to others of his troops. But they would not 
accept the gift, but purchased lands, and settled and married 
natives of the island, and there passed their days, and died in 
Ireland. 

A character of note did say, " When that rash humor which 
my mother gave me makes me forgetful." And a mother 
may have transmitted executive ability and ambition to her 
posterity. 

Three of the descendants of those Fultons came to the city of 
Philadelphia in 1747, and in time settled in Northern Maryland 
and Southern Pennsylvania, not many miles asunder. 

In 1653 Cromwell was clothed by the English Parliament with 
supreme power as Lord Protector of the realm; he died ii. Sep- 
tember, 1658. His son Richard, who lacked executive ability, 
was appointed Protector, but within one year retired to obscurity 
as a pensioner of the government, and died in 1712. 

But enough of the long ago. 

I do not here record to please or to displease, but to present 
facts for distant coming ages; to do otherwise would curtail the 
truth, and be a wrong; facts that I can substantiate, the right 
never requests that a pall be spread over it, but wrong skulks to 
shelter. It is absolutely necessary to name observations and 



482 A ' LIFE'S gVOYAGE. 

occurrences, especially such as are connected with or have a bear- 
ing on a life's voyage; to do less would leave a blank. 

I deal with nations and communities and their representatives; 
individual acts have no place on my record; local history, to in- 
form a coming people of the past, i^ossesses a value that at a dis- 
tant period will attract the attention of the observing, and will be 
appreciated. As an individual, all I ever asked for was sailors' 
rights and honesty, and w^hen refused I used my best endeavors 
to maintain my rights regardless of strength or numbers. 

When all was calm prosperity and fair sailing, foreigners 
flocked onto the Black Hawk hunting grounds, and as is well 
known to every citizen, as soon as they gained strength through 
numbers, they claimed and took possession of all public money, 
and disbursed the same, and claimed and took possession of all 
offices without regard to their ability. They filled every chari- 
table institution of State and county with their paupers, as the 
records of those institutions bear witness. The records of the 
past and the present, since they gained the ascendency, evidence 
a shameful discrimination in assessments of property against 
Americans, and when they act as appraisers of property to be 
condemned for public purpose, depending on owners, they deal 
in confiscation, and the magnitude of the sums of money paid to 
appraisers astonishes the taxpayers. 

It is well known to every citizen possessing knowledge of pass- 
ing events before them, events which are recorded within the 
city archives, that the Americans under a frontage tax and law 
curbed and macadamed their streets at a vast cost, under which 
tax some property was lost to its owners; when the foreigners 
gained the ascendency, they with their aldermen met in caucus 
at Lahrman's Hall and concocted to force those same Americans, 
through taxes on themselves, to place miles of grading, curb- 
ing, and macadam within the foreign quarter. The foreigners 
were aided in their unrighteous acts — acts that drove hundreds 
of Americans from the city and county to show their worth and 
ability in more congenial quarters. 

Those foreigners at a courthouse public-school meeting, re- 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 483 

quested one teacher of German at the public cost, pledging the 
assembly never to increase the number; the request was granted 
by a small majority of the meeting, but as soon as they gained 
the power by the aid of American politicians and local pensioners, 
notwithstanding their solemn pledge, they increased the number 
in the small school district to fourteen. 

Time has proven the operation to be a worthless waste, except 
to keep up a clan, as the second and the third oreneration are less 
American and more Dutch than their Holstein fathers and moth- 
ers. This is a fair sample of many communities. Tliose open 
claims and seized-on exclusive privileges, disgusted hundreds of 
Americans within many cities of this Union. 

Sailor I will not strike my colors or retreat from the Black 
Hawk hunting ground whilst a single shot remains in my locker. 
. Injustice reigned supreme, especially in taxation and expendi- 
tures, and Sailor I, who suffered under the great wrongs, but 
could not with hopes of success attack the combination in front, 
or with any hope of relief by appeal to manly right and justice, 
consequently I resolved to mend a small portion of the great 
wrong, at a point where no great wrong existed, but where there 
was ample ground for action. 

I had some acre land seven blocks north of the court house 
near the center of the city; I refused to pay the taxes on it, hav- 
ing had to pay unjust taxes on much more valuable property. 
The acre property was advertised by the city marshal to be sold 
for delinquent taxes. Sailor I, as in New Orleans, personally 
drew up papers praying the court for an injunction to stay the 
sale, and notwithstanding the efforts of a good and far-famed 
city attorney, my prayer was granted. Then in time came this 
injunction proceedings before the second court under my prayer, 
to make the injunction perpetual, and as it w^as a question of ex- 
empting property from taxation, the entire bar was unfriendly 
to me, an intruder, and to my action of curtailing the tax list, 
and they bestowed their sympathy and knowledge on my oppo- 
nent and against me. The city attorney demurred to my petition 
and whole proceedings, but after long talk, the court decided that 



484 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

I had all in proper trim and shipshape, and ordered sail set for 
the legal voyage and combat. 

At the onset the entire bar with one voice declared that Fulton 
had not a shadow of a case, and at the close of the evidence, my 
opponent informed the court that both the law and the evidence 
were overwhelmingly against me; I then well knew that my sole 
reliance and hope rested in my pleadings, and I used my best 
endeavors to cause my pleadings to fill the lacking of the law and 
evidence, and two lower courts sustained the injunction, decree- 
ing it to be perpetual, after which the city carried the case into 
the deep waters of the Supreme Court, where my opponents 
brought into action all their power in law and trained eloquence, 
but Sailor I had a say. There was a very large sum at stake, 
created by a regiment of witnesses and generalship, and exertion 
was essential; the court took time to render its decree, but when 
rendered it sustained the decrees of the lower courts, making the 
injunction perpetual. 

The Iowa Supreme Court Reports, vol. xvii, at page 404, now 
before me, says, " Fulton versus the City of Davenport, ct air, 
Fulton pro sc" In after years I divided this property and re- 
quested the assessor to place it on the tax lists. 

Respecting taxation the Davenport " Gazette " of November 
13, 1884, and now before me, published as follows: 

" A QUESTION OF TAXATION. 



" Recovery of City Taxes Paid on Farming Lands — The First Suit 

of a Similar Character. 

" In the Burlington ' Hawkeye ' of a recent date appears the 
following: 

" ' A case of utmost importance, that of William Tubbesing 
vs. the City of Burlington, foreclosure of taxes, was decided yes- 
terday. The plaintiff is the owner of lands within the city, used 
for farming purposes, and has brought suit to recover city taxes 
paid on the lands. A judgment was given for plaintiff for all 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 4^5 

taxes except 1877-78. A large number of similar cases against 
the city are depending upon the one in question, and if Judge 
Phelps' decision is sustained by the Supreme Court the city will 
be compelled to refund nearly nine thousand dollars of taxes col- 
lected on city property used for farming purposes. The loss in- 
curred thereby must be balanced by a special tax levy.' 

" The first acre-land suit involving the same question was de- 
cided by the Supreme Court of Iowa, on December 6, 1864. It 
was an appeal from the Scott district court, and entitled, ' Fulton 
vs. the City of Davenport.' The question then presented for de- 
termination was, how far a corporative town or city may tax the 
real property situated within its boundary limits for general 
municipal purposes. 

*' On the trial of this cause, the parties to the suit entered into 
an agreement, admitting the allegations of the petition, except- 
ing those relating to the fact, as to whether the said real estate is 
or was properly assessed as city property, and liable to a city tax 
for year 1862, and whether the same is essentially farming lands, 
and not by law liable to be assessed as city property. 

" It was shown that the land had been for eleven years used for 
farming and agricultural purposes, and had never been laid oflf 
into city or town lots; or having a road or street or opening 
touching it, etc. The decision, which was rendered by Judge 
Lowe, was very lengthy and exhaustive, and in it he said: * When 
the proprietors of undedicated town property, being locally 
within the corporate limits, hold such close proximity to the set- 
tled and improved parts of the town, that the corporate authori- 
ties cannot open and improve its streets and alleys, and extend 
to the inhabitants thereof its usual police regulations and advan- 
tages, without incidentally benefiting such proprietors in their 
personal privileges and accommodations, or in the enhancement 
of their property, then the power to tax the same arises; but in its 
exercise great care and circumspection should be observed, lest, 
perchance, injustice and oppression may ensue. Now applying 
this rule to the property involved in this controversy, in the light 
of the facts and circumstances above reported to us by the referee, 



486 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

we cannot be at a loss where to place this property and to hold 
at once, that locally it occupies no such attitude toward the im- 
proved parts of the town, that it can legally be taxed for 
municipal objects, and the judgment below, therefore, will be 
affirmed.' 

" It was decided also, that where a city or town is erected into 
a road or school district corresponding territorially with the limits 
of the new extension, that all the property therein, without dis- 
tinction, was taxable. 

** A. C. Fulton, Esq., was the owner of the property involved. 
He acted as his own counsel, both before the district court and 
Supreme Court." 

To obtain the situation of an American city for the informa- 
tion of coming generations I visited all of Davenport's public 
buildings and public offices and placed the situation in my diary. 

I found the city collector and the county collector of taxes, 
and all their deputies, the county recorder and the city treasurer 
and their deputies, to be Germans; found the secretary of the 
school board and its treasurer, the city electrician, the overseer 
of the poor, the county treasurer, and the sealer of weights and 
measures, to be Germans. Visited the condemners of sewer 
right of way, found them to be three very independent and over- 
bearing Germans. Found the easy-go-slow superintendent of 
the public building and the postmaster, both of whom supplanted 
quick, energetic Americans, to be Germans. Found the Mayor 
of the city, who was not on the tax list, and a majority of the city 
council, to be Germans. 

An examination of the Mayor's lists of committees clearly and 
plainly discloses the fact that they were based on German nation- 
ality, not on fitness, ability, and worth. Those lists clearly wit- 
ness that the brains and worth are universally attached to minor, 
or the tail end of his committees. 

Found the city and county assessors and a majority of the city 
and county boards of tax equalization to be Germans appointed 
for a purpose, and who had sworn to do justice in assessing and 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 487 

equalizing taxation. The books of tax records, now safely rest- 
ing in their iron vaults, witnesses of the great wrongs. 

A soon coming law requires each person to make return of the 
value of their possessions for taxation under oath. Taking the 
long practiced wrong and injustice as a criterion, vast rolls of 
pure white paper will be dinged and blackened by deliberate 
perjury. 

Had not the ill-treated Americans, who are taxed to support 
German officers and German institutions, framed and formed the 
assessors' plats and books, and the books and system of each of 
the many departments, not a man of the vast German force could 
originate and properly run his office. 

My diary says I was a member of the Davenport City Council 
when the Milton Sanders electric light had become the light of 
some cities. The Davenport City Council proposed to adopt that 
light, but Sailor I was greatly surprised when the Germans in the 
council insisted on erecting iron towers throughout the city to 
elevate the lights skyward, at a vast outlay, and I begged the 
majority of that council not to waste money, running up into 
many thousands of dollars, much of it to be paid by poor men; 
not to light and benefit the cit/s streets and walks, but to light 
distant hills and the sky; but to talk to Germans, as all well know, 
is to talk in vain. 

A Mr. Ballon, reporter for the Davenport " Democrat," pub- 
lished that Sailor I debated and condemned the tower system as 
an expensive and worthless folly, which report of the " Demo- 
crat " is now before me, and with the exception of a few unim- 
portant errors, is correct, and reads as follows: 

" STREET LIGHTING. 



" An Interesting Report on the Subject— The Edison Proposition- 
Gas and Naphtha vs. Electricity— The Cost of Each of the Sys- 
tems—The Tozver Lights— The Old Way the Best Yet. 

"At the meeting of the city council on the 2d of January the 
committee on gas were instructed to make investigation as to the 



488 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

expediency of introducing the electric light for street illumination 
where the naphtha lamps are used. Alderman Fulton, chairman 
of the gas committee, performed the duty, and presented a report 
on Wednesday evening last which interested the council very 
much. The report not only covered the ground desired by the 
council, but went into the subject at large pretty thoroughly. 

'* The Edison Proposition. 

" First, Mr. Fulton stated that the only person near at hand 
that he could find who was interested in electric-light business 
was Mr. A. S. Kissell, superintendent of the Western Edison Elec- 
tric Light Company for Iowa. Mr. Kissell was of the opinion 
that it would be too expensive to establish plants to supply the 
place of our scattered gasoline lamps, but when the whole field, 
or one-half mile square of it can be supplied, and a few private 
lamps thrown in, two i6-candle burners at the crossings of the 
streets could be furnished at about $24 yearly for each street con- 
nection, and it is believed the arrangement would afford sufficient 
light for each block. 

*' The report stated if this can be accomplished it will be a great 
saving to the city, as it will throw out 20 of the now double gas 
lamps from the corners of streets, and also throw out 29 center 
lamps or half-block gas lamps, which, at the present price of $36 
per lamp, will be a saving of $1764. This deduction of 49 lamps 
will leave 171 lamps, which, if reduced in price from $36 to $24 
per lamp, will make a further saving of $2052, or a total saving of 
$3816. An increase of the 162 gasoline lamps from the present 
price of $21 to $24 per lamp, will add a cost of $648, which, de- 
ducted from the $3816, will make a total net saving of $3168 per 
year. 

" Alderman Fulton then spoke of the system of 

" Tower Illumination. 

*' He had made visits to the electric-light towers in Rock 
Island at night and in the daytime. They have ten towers with 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 489 

lights in operation, and two more are soon to be added. The 
city is to pay $720 per tower yearly, making $8640 on the twelve 
towers. Short, hasty visits are not sufficient to judge of the 
merits of the work, but he was satisfied that a large portion of the 
light, on account of its great height, is carried from earth to 
ether and the realms above, leaving darkness to streets two to five 
blocks distant, especially when the streets are lined with brick 
walls. To benefit those streets, even in a measure, a further ex- 
tension upwards will become necessary. The tower light is more 
efficient in the outside or rural districts. He had learned through 
the journals that the tower system has been abandoned in Naples 
and Milan in Italy, and Wabash, Ind. 

" Then Alderman Fulton stated that ' a person, even after a 
partial examination, should form some opinion as to the merits 
of the different systems of street illumination.' 

" A Proposition. 

'' From an interview with the Davenport Electric Light Com- 
pany, he believed they would be willing to place two burners at 
the junction of two streets for one year at the same cost of gas, to 
wit: $6 per month for the two corners. This would give the city 
and people an opportunity to judge of its merits. If the experi- 
ment should prove satisfactory, our street lighting will cost us 
$486 less than Rock Island's, though we^iave much more 
territory to cover, and neariy twice as many inhabitants to be 
benefited." 

The towers were erected, and the people for some years paid 
a vast sum of money, not for light, for no light was given to 
them, and the costly towers were toppled down as worthless. 
Sailor I was disgusted at the ignorant act, and resigned my seat 
m the council, and journeyed to Mexico, but I was not relieved 
from paying a large sum for darkness and folly. 

My diary, and also the official records, witness that since the 
combination of the more than A. P. A. and Know-nothing for- 
eigners seized the offices and stole a march on the sleeping 



490 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Americans, and rushed in their German teachers with their vast 
array of contingencies, sundries, and incidentals, including over 
fifty thousand dollars taken from a small district to erect the 
extra extent of costly school buildings, the support of this for- 
eign institution has cost the people of Davenport a much larger 
sum of money than did their outlay in railroads and all their pub- 
lic buildings, and the well-known worthless waste continues to 
keep up a Germany in Davenport, Chicago, and in all other Ger- 
man quarters, where the poor man's home and the widow's cow 
are taxed as well as the rich man's mansion, and without a doubt 
this constant continued German tax has brought to sale and loss 
many a poor man's home; it has been the last straw that broke 
the camel's back. 

But mark! very soon will Nemesis be on their tracks to scat- 
ter the unjust clan as does the wind scatter the dust of the earth, 
notwithstanding their now exclusive privileges over Americans 
and all other nationalities of foreigners in this land of America 
who work to educate and feed them. 

Those facts, with many hundreds of other occurrences, did 
Sailor I place on my diary during a life's voyage, for coming 
generations. 

If this situation, system, and acts are right, proper, and bene- 
ficial, and for the public good, then the world should applaud 
and approve the acts and the advancement over our obtuse 
fathers' days, and every and all communities should hasten to 
adopt them in every particular, and if all communities have no 
Germans to govern and teach them, it is their duty to hastily 
import them for the public good; but if wrong, tyrannical, 
vicious, and oppressive, and counter to the public prosperity and 
general good, then should the finger of contempt and scorn be 
pointed at the evil-doers and their posterity down to the third 
generation. 

It is a great hardship and a wrong to be compelled by foreign- 
ers to work for and support an un-American, unrighteous, and 
worthless foreign institution through taxation, a tax more odious 
^nd more galling than the British Tea Tax sought to be placed on 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 49' 

Americans, the return for which some worthless Americans look 
for foreign votes; votes that, if not forbidden, will in time be the 
coffin of our republic and liberty. 

Many unbalanced-minded Americans aid the Germans in the 
great wrong through ignorance; they should know that the 
multiplicity of languages was not bestowed on man by the great 
Supreme as a blessing, but a curse, and the undertaking has 
proven to be a success. 

In all ages the abuse of the taxing power has been the pro- 
lific cause of revolutions, and it is the duty of this government 
and people to grasp the monster, whenever it shows its venomous 
head, with hands of steel. 

In 1881 an Iowa journal, a journal of admitted ability, and 
now before me, published as follows : 

" THE TAXING POWER. 

" There is no power intrusted to our law-makers that is so 
much prostituted as the taxing power. In all ages and in all 
countries the abuse of this power has been one of the most pro- 
lific causes of revolution, and it is to-day one of the greatest dan- 
gers that threaten our form of government. From the time that 
our forefathers protested against taxation without representation, 
the American people have denounced the plan of taxing the 
many for the benefit of the few. That this is done when the 
citizens of Scott County are taxed to support a language which is 
so remote from the English, there can be no question. It is un- 
necessary for us to expatiate on the evils arising from the teach- 
ing of German." 

During the Herr Most trials a New York journal published as 
follows : 

" THE IGNORANT INTRUDERS. 

" The anarchist trials at Chicago, and the Most trials in New 
York, exhibit unparalleled ignorance and impudence, which 
should be rebuked by every American citizen." 



492 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

I here submit one of hundreds of similar written and spoken 
absurdities and evidences of the ignorance that prevails amongst 
those unwelcome intruders who claim the right and ability to 
amend our laws, to obliterate our institutions, and to supplant our 
usages through unrighteous combination. At the Herr Most 
trial one of the Most witnesses, Emile Kosse, testified that he did 
not know whether the United States was conducted as a republic 
or a monarchy. 

Foreigners and the American Flag. 

The State of Illinois to teach and plant patriotism in the breasts 
of the youth of the State, passed a law requiring the American flag 
to be placed near or over all schoolhouses; the Germans set up a 
howl of indignation, and in a contemptuous manner set the law at 
defiance, as is well known to thousands. They considered them- 
selves more competent to teach and govern than the native 
bearers of the Stars and Stripes, yet they did not, could not gov- 
ern wathin their own country, but they here club together for 
office and endeavor to control, and become rabid when a law 
passed for the good of the American people does not suit their 
foreign whims. They objected to let the flag of the country that 
gave them protection, bread, and wealth, to wave over their 
schoolhouses that sheltered their offspring; a flag that gave them 
wealth and homes that they would never have possessed in their 
Germany. The Stars and Stripes, beneath its folds a nation rose, 
to give them a home; through toilsome marches, through cold 
and heat, through starvation and ghastly wounds and untimely 
graves; yet they combine and plot, and work against America, 
her flag, her laws and usages. 

To fully understand this German war against the State of Illi- 
nois, a war of infamy, I kindly invite the interested American 
reader to examine the columns of the Chicago *' Tribune " of 
September 3, 1895, and several of previous and of later dates. 
The '' Tribune " is a journal of acknowledged worth and ability. 
This journal says that the German Lutherans refused to obey a 
Ifiw of the great Stat? of Illinois, 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 493 

On August 14, 1895, the Chicago " Tribune," which is now 
before me, pubHshed as follows : 

" DO AS THEY PLEASE. 

" Lutherans Will Not Hoist the Flag at All Times — They Are 
Patriotic and Love the Stars and Stripes, but They do not Intend 
to Place It at the Head of Their Schoolhouses at All Times as Pro- 
vided by the New Lazv — The Convention zvill Take Action during 
Its Present Session at Schaiimberg. 

'' German Lutheran ministers of the Northern district of Illi- 
nois are in triennial session at Schaumberg. The session is pre- 
sided over by Professor Theodore Brahm of Addison, Dupage 
County, Illinois, and will continue until Thursday. The proceed- 
ings yesterday were of a routine nature, and uninteresting to the 
general public. 

'' Before the session closes there will be a strong expression in 
the form of a resolution against the school flag law passed by the 
recent legislature. There are thirty German Lutheran congrega- 
tions in Chicago, and more than one hundred teachers are en- 
gaged in the denominational schools. In speaking of the attitude 
of the conference Herman F. L. Reimer of the Immanuel school, 
Marshall Avenue and Twelfth Street, said : 

" ' I think the State ought to have had sense enough to keep 
its hands ofif our schools. We have told the authorities what we 
would do, and after a time they will learn we mean what we say. 
We have a flag on our school and will hoist it when we feel like 
it and at no other time. Let them pass laws for the public 
schools if they like, but they must not meddle with us. I person- 
ally put up the flagpole on our schoolhouse, and I always raise 
the flag on the Fourth of July and Washington's birthday. We 
teach patriotism and love of country, but will not be dictated to. 
The committee organized four years ago to fight the Edwards 
compulsory attendance law is still in existence and is ready to 
take up this fight. The denomination is a unit on this question. 
This flag law is an entering wedge, and would result in State con- 



494 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

trol of private schools. The first thing we know they would pass 
a law to compel us to teach nothing but the English language. 
We teach that now, and German as well. 

'' ' It is only a short time ago they were actually discussing the 
propriety of having a picture of the American flag printed in 
every book used in the schools. What nonsense! We teach 
religion in our schools. Think of a picture of a flag in every 
Bible! We pay our taxes toward the support of the public 
schools, but intend to conduct our private schools without State 
interference.' " 

Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend! More hideous when 
harbored within the breast of man than the serpent of the sea. 

Pauperism and Insanity. 

Iowa, as a grain- and food-producing State, stands fully equal 
to any State in this vast Union, and Scott County stands at the 
head of the productive counties of Iowa, consequently there is 
no valid reason or excuse for the existence of the extent of want 
and poverty that my diary and the official reports exhibit. All 
should be able to procure independent bread. 

Good reader, I here plainly place on record a few out of a vast 
number of official reports of an average exhibit of foreign pauper- 
ism and insanity that has to be supported by the labor and in- 
dustry of others, and it is almost universally well known that the 
shiftless, the old, and the insane have been dumped down here in 
Davenport, by friends and kindred, for they could not have here 
planted themselves; such instances have been published in the 
journals, and some are now well known. 

The following lists from the insane asylum, and from the over- 
seer of the county poor exhibit the situation, and this county of 
Scott is but a very small portion of the State, as there are ninety- 
nine counties in the State of Iowa. 

To substantiate my diary's record, I will here copy from official 
journals now before me, to a small extent. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 



495 



(" Democrat," February 2, 1882.) 

COUNTY RELIEF — INTERESTING FIGURES. 

The official report of J. G. Tuerk, overseer of the poor, for the 
month of January, was presented to the Board of Supervisors 
this morning, and shows some strange figures. 

Mr. Tuerk reports 138 applicants for relief from the poor fund 
last month; of these 27 were Irish, 69 were Germans, 33 were 
Americans, 3 were English, 2 were Swede, i was Bohemian, and 
10 were colored. 

The monthly report of Overseer Tuerk for the month of No- 
vember, 1882, shows that 23 Irish, 37 Germans, 15 Americans, 
2 English, 2 Swede, i Bohemian, 8 colored, and i Dane received 
aid. 

The monthly report of Overseer Tuerk for the month of De- 
cember, 1882, shows that the following expenses were incurred: 



Groceries, 












. $106.75 


Dry goods, . 












5.20 


Meat, . 












10.00 


Transportation, 












20.60 


Milk, 












1.50 


Rent, .... 












104.00 


Relief in money, . 












38.00 


Expenses for insane, 












36.00 


Caring for paupers. 












177.90 


Bill of hospital for insane, 










612.50 


Paupers in hospital. 










171.00 


Transient for patients in hospital. 






96.00 


Transportation of goods of Mrs. Mary Hibbarc 


i, de- 




ceased, 




6.35 


Transportation of child 


of Ml 


's. M 


iller. 


. 




125 



During the month 168 persons applied at the office of the over- 
seer and received aid, 46 of whom were Irish, 84 Germans, 23 
Americans, 4 English, 8 Swedes, i Bohemian, and 2 Africans. 



49^ A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

February j, i8pi — The County Poor. 

Overseer Able presented his report for January to the Board 
of Supervisors yesterday. According to it there were 126 appli- 
cants for aid, 38 Americans, 46 Germans, 2y Irish, 8 Scandina- 
vians, I Bohemian, 6 colored. 

The county furnished 605 bushels of coal, io| barrels of flour, 
250 pounds of corn meal, $92.40 worth of groceries, $1 worth of 
milk, $2.25 worth of shoes; $20 for burial, $35.32 for transporta- 
tion. Medical assistance was furnished 44 patients, 2 were sent 
to the poorhouse, and 3 to Mercy Hospital. The county paid 
$108 for relief, $117 for rent, $7.62 for board and lodging, and 
$19 for the care of the insane. Mercy Hospital's bill for the 
month was $821.33, of which $306 was for the care of the 58 
male patients, $385 for the 22 female patients, and $128 for the 
care of 53 sick persons.. 



(Davenport " Democrat," Wednesday, September 4, 1895.) 

THE county's poor. 

The report of Overseer John Schmidt for the month of Au- 
gust shows that the total number of applicants for aid was 152, 
of which 33 were Americans, 67 Germans, 30 Irish, 14 Scandi- 
navians, 2 Bohemians, and 6 colored. 

The total number of loads of wood furnished was 22', flour, loj 
barrels; corn meal, 125 pounds; groceries, $122.25 worth; sick 
relief, $33; milk, $3.50; shoes, $9.30; burial expenses, $7.50; trans- 
portation, $50.40; medical assistance, patients 53, sent to poor- 
house 4, to hospital 2. The amount of rents paid was $128; re- 
lief in money, $140.50; for cure of insane, $29; for board and 
lodging, $47.04. Amount paid Mercy Hospital was $1010.96, 
of which $458.46 went to the insane department and $552.50 to 
the transient department. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 497 

REPORT OF THE FIFTIES. 

Annual Report of Committee on Poor and Poorhonse. 

To the Honorable Board of Supervisors of Scott County, la. : 

Gentlemen : As chairman of the committee on poor and poor- 
house for the past year I present herewith a statement of the re- 
sults of the farm for the year just closed. We are providing for 
at the present time as paupers 19 persons, 3 of which are females. 
There have been 51 persons entered on the register during the 
year, of the following nationalities, to wit: 

Germans, 2^ 

Bohemian, ^ 

English, ... 2 

Americans, ........ c 

Danish, ....... t 

Norwegian, j 

Irish, .... r. 

Colored, j 

There have been three deaths during the year, 2 Germans, and 
I Dane. 

John S. Ackley. 

We omit the lengthy report of the farm and its products. 



June, 1896. 
The County Poor. 

The report of Overseer of the Poor John Schmidt, for the 
month of June, shows that the total number of applicants for aid 
from the county was 172, of which ^6 were Americans, 90 Ger- 
mans, 31 Irish, 9 Scandinavians, 2 Bohemians, and 4 colored. 
The amount of wood supplied was 33 cords; flour, 9J barrels; 
corn meal, 75 pounds; expended for groceries, $139.25; milk, 
$1; shoes, $1.25; clothing, $5; coffins, $40; transportation, $23.52; 
medical assistance was furnished to 52 persons; number sent to 
poorhouse, 2; amount paid for soldiers' relief, $124; rents paid 



498 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

during the month, $147; rehef in money paid, $165.50; for care of 
insane, $15; for board and lodging, $68. The total amount paid 
the insane department of Mercy Hospital was $2978.50; tran- 
sient departments, $155.52; amount paid St. Luke's, $18. 



Full one-half of those registered as Americans are not Ameri- 
cans, only in name; they are as much German as if they were 
born in Holstein or Berlin; they have not been reared and edu- 
cated as Americans, but Germans, but no doubt they, like their 
fathers and mothers, require charity food and to escape labor. 
This same fact exists in the insane hospitals and in all other chari- 
table institutions. 

Those numerous reports must be correct, for the Germans 
who issue them have farmed this office for many, a great many 
years; some of them have grown gray-headed in this office, and 
some have died. The United States is truly the pauper's Mecca 
and the loafer's Paradise. 

Insane Report. 

The biennial report of the Iowa Hospital for the Insane for 
the fiscal years 1894 and 1895 reports that 53 Germans have been 
admitted during the past twenty-four months, and that the total 
number of Germans that have been admitted to the hospital num- 
ber 843, a vast number to be run in for the workers to support. 
Taking the population, this report exhibits more than four Ger- 
mans to each American. 

It is well known that the insane paupers and loafers have been 
and are now being run into America, to enter our charitable in- 
stitutions, and to hold office under pay, for Americans to edu- 
cate in foreign languages and support through hard work and 
energy. 

From what I have observed and know, over three thousand 
foreigners journey to America annually with a view of getting 
into office; they are generally needy, shiftless men. Their kin 
and friends who get into office here immedia ^ly write back home 
of their big pay and ease, and hundreds then say that they are the 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 499 

writer's superior, and that they must journey to America and 
claim office, and they come for office. One instance of the kind 
I must place on my record. 

A gentleman from Ireland, residing in Davenport's first ward, 
was elected city alderman; he wrote back home ^hat he was an 
alderman of the great city of Davenport, and sat next to the Lord 
Mayor, and wore a plug hat and carried his cane; this letter 
brought two of his neighbors that, I personally knew of, who 
wanted office. 

A Davenport journal publishes as follows: 

" PAUPER IMMIGRANTS. 

*' The large number of pauper immigrants from Germany who 
are arriving in this country demands that something should be 
done to keep such people at home. Of the 42 Germans who re- 
ceived assistance from Scott County last month, two-thirds were 
recent arrivals sent here by the authorities of their native towns, 
or cities, to be got rid of. The people of this county are taxed 
enough to support the poor who have acquired residence here 
from the Old World to be cared for. They are having the same 
experience in Clinton County." 

The Clinton County "Herald" says: "The Board of Super- 
visors of this county have grown a trifle indignant over the dis- 
covery that the German authorities are shipping paupers to this 
country, and that within a short time several of these unde- 
sirable immigrants have settled in this vicinity at the eve of 
winter, with no adequate means of support. At the present ses- 
sion of the Board three cases have come to notice where Ger- 
man immigrants recently arrived have applied for public aid, and 
two of the instances were men fifty-seven and sixty-seven years 
of age respectively, who had been only six weeks in this country, 
and who were sent here penniless by the authorities of a village 
near Hamburg. The board says, they will cordially welcome all 
self-supporting immigrants, from whatever clime or country, but 
they do not want to spend the substance of frugal and industrious 
lowans on the aged pauper population of Europe." 



500 . A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

The Germans, by the aid of other foreigners, and a few luke- 
warm and unappreciating Americans, who were content with the 
sweepings from the well-suppHed pubhc crib, took possession of 
every station, and dictated with an unjust and iron hand and an 
ignorant bravado that Sailor I could not rest content under, and I 
was compelled by the Goddess of Liberty to speak to our home 
community. 

Those Germans have openly on the political stand declared that 
church members were unfitted for offices of trust. All sailors 
protect the Bethlehem from ruthless hands, and I will not act the 
part of a sneaking coward. 

The fastidious may call this trivial and local. Such persons 
should be informed that the vast world is formed by small, trivial 
particles. 

To show their abhorrence of the imposition, a St. Louis jour- 
nal of note and standing, now before me, in 1883 published as 
follows : 

" Our judgment is that our public schools are attempting to 
carry too much, and on this account they are not accomplishing 
what they ought to accomplish for the masses of the people." 
" So far as we know, the Germans are the only people who have 
attempted to defy the object of our school system by forcing their 
great cumbrous language into the schools at public expense. 
Our normal schools, sustained at a great expense for the educa- 
tion of our young people as teachers, are about a failure, as no 
matter what may be the accomplishments of applicants they stand 
no chance before a board of German directors. He must be a 
German or a Germanized American, from some State that has 
truckled to this demon of discord, or he cannot succeed." 

Yes, and here in Davenport each school director must be a 
German, or a Germanized American; as was witnessed at a late 
delegate meeting, at which the Americans begged the privilege 
of selecting one of the directors, but were refused. Personal lib- 
erty revolted at such a request and it was not granted. 

To systemize their cherished schemes they, the Germans, sup- 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 501 

port traveling organizers and speakers. Those speakers ad- 
dressed the Germans of Davenport, in August, 1881. Mr. H. 
Schuricht of Chicago, at that meetijig, said that the German lan- 
guage should be maintained in this country as long as the Ger- 
mans continued to immigrate to America. Another speaker 
complained that Detroit, which he said had a population of one- 
third Germans, had only one teacher in German. Another 
speaker claimed that the Constitution of the United States should 
be amended, requiring German to be taught in all public schools 
of the country. 

Many have so long worn shackles that they look on them as 
ornaments. 

In a protracted pen-and-ink war with Germany's champion, 
lawyer H. R. Claussen, respecting this momentous question of 
oppressively taxing Americans to teach well-known clannish for- 
eigners, Sailor I wrote to the press the best I could as follows. 
Yet the press was not, dared not, be my friend. And I also ap- 
pealed to the State and national councils, but appealed in vain. 
Yet I have not, will not, surrender to wrong and oppression 
whilst a shot remains in my locker. 

" THE PARLIAMENT. 



" Is It Knozu-nofhmgismf — A. C. Fulton's Reply to H. R. Claussen. 

"Editor of the 'Gazette': 

" I understand that one of the objects of a journal is to point 
out wrongs, to enlighten, and to aid in ameliorating the condi- 
tion of the people. Mr. H. R. Claussen lays before your readers 
a statement of the dense population of Switzerland, Germany, 
and other European countries, as if it was a benefit and a bless- 
ing. He points out the capacity of this Union to support a 
larger population per square mile. But he neglects to mention 
the important fact that this vast European population is not pros- 
perous or contented with mere numbers, but are daily being 
shipped to this country by their governments and friends, as well 
as through their own resources. 



502 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

** The inference of Mr. Claiissen's weak argument is that it 
would be beneficial to fill up, as soon as possible, all vacant space, 
lands, asylums, and poorhouses of this Union with Europeans, 
or rather with Germans, as the whole tenor of his argument 
plainly bears witness. I include asylums, as the ' Gazette ' re- 
ported a few days ago that persons of foreign birth composed six- 
teen per cent, of the population of Iowa, and comprised thirty- 
two per cent, of the inmates of the Independence Insane Asylum. 

*' Mr. Claussen points to Henry Villard, Carl Schurz, and other 
foreigners as men of enterprise and worth. This I admit. But, 
singular it would be if, amongst the hundreds of thousands of 
foreigners who seek our shores, there should be no men of note. 
Mr. Claussen, with sympathy, and at great length, boasts of Mr. 
Villard's great exertions and success in a bhnd pool operation, 
and the value and extent of his railroads. Mr. Jay Gould has 
also several railroads, but receives little credit for possessing them. 

" General Siegel is also a foreigner of merit, and, like Mr. Claus- 
sen, a German advocate. He appeared in Davenport as a foreign 
Know-nothing, and for hours at the German theater advised and 
urged all Germans to adhere, to combine, that by so doing they 
could accomplish what the Goths and Normans accomplished 
when they settled in Eastern Europe; introduce their language, 
control, and, in time, govern this country. And the masses of 
the Germans of this and of other cities are strenuously adhering 
to the Siegel doctrine, even down to the third generation. Many 
of the rising generation through education and the influence of 
their surroundings are as thoroughly German as if they resided in 
Schleswig-Holstein. 

" All Americans well know that this Germanizing undertaking 
will result in naught, notwithstanding the Claussen and Siegel 
wishes and the untiring labor of the traveling German Salvation 
Army. Yet its tendency is injurious to the general good. 

" Mr. Claussen charges me with native prejudice, and in con- 
nection claims, as he says, the right to teach pupils of German de- 
scent the language of their parents, which Mr. Claussen well 
knows is a great wrong and hardship on those who have to pay, 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 503 

and yet cannot have their children taught the language of their 
parents. It is also a great hardship on the Catholics, who re- 
lieve our schools and schoolhouses, which they largely helped to 
erect, by teaching in their own schools many hundreds of their 
children. Yet they, under our laws, are entitled to their religion 
and forms, and should and must be protected against useless taxa- 
tion and oppression. The results of their schools are a credit to 
this city. Their directors know that eighty per cent, of the chil- 
dren of this country have to leave school between the ages of 
fourteen and sixteen to go to work; many of their own children 
do so to help their fathers pay the taxes levied on their homes to 
pay eleven German teachers and their large contingencies. 
Shame, shame, where is thy blush? 

" The Catholics give an old-time American education — spelling, 
reading, writing, definitions, geography, grammar, and arithme- 
tic. Their rich go up to the academies and pay. No waste, in 
their schools, of school days in a vain endeavor to master Latin 
or German. What is the result? Go to the mills, shops, facto- 
ries, and printing offices and you will see; or ask, who of the 
rising generation are entering into business and building homes, 
and you will again see. 

" In respect to my running as school director, I never proposed 
to run. No tickets were printed, and none voted until midday. 
Yet, in two wards I defeated the German candidates by nearly 
two votes to one. 

" My Know-nothingism is for this grand republic, and we have 
many Germans, Swedes, Irish, Scotch, and English possessing 
the same feeling. 

" Journals state that Mr. Claussen's personal-liberty Germany 
prohibits the teaching of the French language even in pay 
schools; and, in the French districts of Alsace and Lorraine, the 
use of the German language by the municipal authorities is made 
compulsory, while French clubs have been suppressed. A poor 
show is this for the language of our parents, unless the parents 
are Germans. 

" Mr. Claussen and the school board well know that teaching 



504 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

the masses German has proven an expensive folly. They should 
know that an American is as competent to understand broken or 
poor English from a German, as is a German to understand bro- 
ken or poor German from an American. 

" Mr. Claussen says the Germans in taking the sole charge of 
all public funds during many years, have taken good care of them 
(yes, they have), as all vouchers will show. They received and 
safely hold seventy per cent, of all funds and disburse these to 
contractors and officials, and have divided the balance evenly with 
the Americans and other nationalities, all of which is very kind in 
the Germans. 

" I shall at some future time show to Mr. Claussen, and the 
world, German Know-nothingism in all its black deformity. 

" A. C. Fulton. 

" Davenport, la., September 22, 1883." 

The whirligig of time revolved and 1897 came around, and the 
honest German city treasurer above spoken of defaulted and ac- 
knowledged that he had appropriated to his own use some eight 
thousand dollars of the hard-working people's money and used it 
as his own, in addition to the large sums that had been paid to 
him* during many years as the city treasurer, and experts re- 
ported under oath that he had not confessed to all of his great 
wrongs and robberies by over five thousand dollars, as evidence 
of which the Davenport " Republican " on the i6th day of Sep- 
tember, 1897, publishes as follows: 

" TREASURY DEFICIT. 



" Shortage of Ex-Treasurer Rcick Over $1^,000 — The Committee 

Reports. 

"The report of Alderman Bawden of the finance committee, 
made at the city council last night, shows the shortage of ex- 
Treasurer Reick to be $13,663.78, more than twice what it was 
first thought to be. By the report of the accountant, from which 
Mr, Bawden read, ex-Clerk Martin was shown to be short in his 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 505 

accounts $663.1 1. The total shortage in the paving fund and the 
sewer fund will amount to over $60,000." 

All of this great injustice to the hard-working, innocent tax- 
payers growing out of the greed and inaptitude of a combination 
who have long miposed their unwelcome authority and ignorance 
on a community to the great injury of the general good. 

This act of a vast robbery places a damper on the above boasted 
and published honesty. 

This sly seizure of tax money by its treasurer should be called 
and written a mere bagatelle when compared with the long and 
novv continued gigantic fraud and wrong, consuming hundreds 
of thousands of hard-earned dollars. 

The foreign editor cries, Know-nothing. Sailor I also cry 
Know-nothing! Foreign Know-nothing! 

There is a wide difference, an expansive latitude in respect to 
and in the design, and the result of the acts of the two classes of 
know-nothmgs, affecting America's good; designs as widely di- 
verging as the two ports for departed spirits. 

Thousands of good and worthy citizens can testify that for near 
one-third of a century a foreign clan and combination has ex- 
isted and has wrung dollars from the hard hands of toil, for a vile 
and worthless purpose. 

The Prince of Darkness could not conceive nor perpetrate a 
))lacker act; they all in subtile concert move to wrong and rob 
the poor. All well know that a majority of the school boards for 
a great many years have been searched for and elected not for 
the general good but for one single purpose, a foreign Know- 
nothing purpose. Good friends, I do not wish to st^ir vou up 
against your school boards, they do but work to order. ' I dis- 
course to be understood. 

As is well known in many quarters they openly boast of their 
acts and express their desires; but it is to be hoped that they do 
but triumph for a season longer. 

The masses possess gentle hearts, unswayed by passion even 
when hundreds of them grieve and suffer through want of food 



5o6 A LIFE'S VOYAGjB. 

and tax money to save them from being thrust from their honleS 
through tax sales, created through unrighteous and injudicious 
laws. 

Our leaders, officials, journals, and lawmakers must have in- 
herited from their distant ancestors a large quantity of coward- 
ice, for it does not exist in America's pure atmosphere. I do 
hope your pent-up souls will not in time rebel and censure you 
for your neglect and this cowardice, that is even now extending 
to your children, whom you drill and teach to be submissive 
cowards. 

I greatly sorrow for your sad condition, so meekly borne, and 
the word, vengeance, never uttered. 

Herein no swelling act for self but meekness, not for recom^ 
pense but as in duty bound. 

I do but record the great wrong for the public good. Through 
long precedent from sire to son the clan consider it a right 
divine. 

Good citizens, I do not wish to stir your hearts to rage or vio- 
lence, but you have been long and greatly wronged by openly 
boasting and declaring to be foreigners, and their purpose, in- 
novation. Kind Heaven! aid the arm that hurls defiance at 
oppression and wrong. 

All well know that they with dogged persistence delight to 
undo, if possible, everything American, without regard to wrong 
or betterment; even to robbing the descendants of Franklin, 
Washington, and Jefferson, of their language. A foul and fiend- 
ish act deliberately plotted and enforced. An unnatural and 
blighting graft to place on America's flourishing tree. 

I have seen many poor families part from their hard-earned, 
tax-sold homes with tears of sorrow, a tax increased from year 
to year for uncalled-for and worthless purposes. Brutes may 
gloat on distress with pleasure but a righteous heart, never. 

God's bread has long been and is now daily taken from the 
mouths of children to be bestowed on a vast army of well-fed, 
incompetent, and over-paid officials, and vile and worthless pur- 
poses. 



Ancient and modern riisTokv. 507 

All possessing ordinary brains well know those cruel and un- 
righteous facts, and thousands know I truly speak and therefore 
do no man a wrong. 

But those acts are so monstrous when placed on pure white 
paper that credence stands aghast. Communities are enslaved 
and its proper name is cruelty. 

Many thousands of Americans have and many other thousands 
will cringe but meekly submit to unjust and well-known to be 
wrong and worthless taxation, and many other great wrongs, 
wrongs imposed on them by foreigners. 

Singular that the masses in many quarters have so long and 
meekly submitted to an oppressive wrong. 

But, by the waters of the ocean, by the burning tapers of the 
sky, by the Goddess Diana, never Sailor I, no, never! 

To aid in carrying on this illicit trafhc the proceeds of the 
school lands are freely appropriated and wasted. 

My diary says that the first grant of pubhc land, the sixteenth 
section of 640 acres of each township of land, was donated to th^ 
State of Ohio by the Continental Congress, on May 20, 1785 
Section Three of that act reads as follows: " Religion, Morality, 
and Knowledge being necessary to good government and the 
happiness of mankind, schools and the means of Education shall 
forever be encouraged." This act says that the grant of land is 
for the maintenance of Common, or Public Schools, and no other 
purpose. This act was extended in 1803 to all public-land States, 
which in time included Iowa. The proceeds of this gift of land, 
to support common schools and no other purpose, is this day, in 
1898, being extensively used to teach a foreign language in viola- 
tion of law. A language, that had it been named to be propa- 
gated, that Congress of 1785 would never, never have bestowed 
one single acre to a State that would so basely use it. Every 
man possessing ordinary intellect well knows this fact. 

The following States received grants of land, numbering acres, 
and in the years, as here given, for common, or free schools, and 
no other purpose. 



5o^ 



A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 



ACRES. 



Ohio, . 

Mississippi, 

Louisiana, 

Indiana, 

Illinois, 

Alabama, 

Missouri, 

Arkansas, 

Michigan, 

Florida, 

Iowa, 

Wisconsin, 



704,488 

837,584 
786,044 

650,317 
985,066 
902,774 

1,199,139 
886,460 

1,167,379 
908,503 

905,144 
958,649 



DATE. 

March, 1803 
March, 1803 
April, 1806 
April, 1816 
April, 1818 
March, 1819 
March, 1820 
June, 1836 
February, 1843 
March, 1845 
March, 1845 
August, 1846 



Wisconsin is the last exhil)it on my diary of the donation of 
Public Lands to the States. 

After this extraordinary exhibit the reader may be led to sup- 
pose that Iowa is a second Germany. Very far from its even 
approaching that deplorable situation. The Iowa Census of 
1895 gives the State a population of 1,727,521, of whom but 132,- 
347 are Germans. And the Census of the United States for 1890 
places the population of the Union at 62,622,250, of whom but 
2,784,894 are Germans. The Irish number 1,871,509; the Scan- 
dinavians number 933,249; the English, 909,092; the Scotch, 
242,231 ; and those from British America number 980,939. 

Astonishing as it may appear to you, good reader, thousand.^ 
of those persons named, as well as other thousands of Americans, 
under our unrighteous laws, are compelled to labor and procure 
money to erect buildings and employ teachers, to teach the for- 
eign German language, in the land of Washington, once the land 
of Justice and American Liberty. 

Upon the world's vast sea of storms and calms, the Ship of 
Truth and Justice frequently collides with the Ship of Policy and 
Wrong, but the Ship of Truth and Justice is never Avrecked, 
whilst that of Policy and Wrong, with its piratical crew, is en- 
gulfed beneath the boisterous waves of an angry sea. 



AN(^IENT AND MODERN HISTORY. 509 

When I sail to the port from whence no sailor ever returns, I 
cannot regret that I plead for the poor man's home. How will 
it be with the directly, or indirectly, paid, cold-blooded advocate 
of Wrong and Robbery? 

In the night's long and silent hours of darkness, will the man 
of selfish wrong enjoy sw^eet repose? Or will a guilty conscience 
place tormenting and distressing specters before his perturbed 
and doubting soul? Ah, there is the rub! A trembling soul en- 
cased in a casket of flesh and blood, crouching from the poison- 
ous and feared fangs of wrong. 

Half a century ago this was an American nation. No Herr 
Most, no Chicago Haymarket bomb-throwers, no strikes to cause 
distress of the poor and discourage the men in active life, no 
Davenport German press to be supported in an ofificial capacity 
to the extent of thousands, procured through the taxation of the 
homes of both the poor and the rich, and command the Iowa 
press to obey its orders. No array of teachers to play teach Ger- 
man, at the cost of hundreds of hard-working and frugal Ameri- 
cans and the people of many nations. No dishonest tax assess- 
ments to wrong and distress hundreds, and disgrace the tax lists. 
No clans to claim exclusive privileges over all other nationalities, 
at the cost of all others, without any compensation. 

Let us calmly examine the cause and the grow'th of this situa- 
tion, which grew out of the unhealthy immigration, a flow too 
extensive to teach and Americanize. 

During the ten years from 18 10 to 1820 only 47,200 foreigners 
entered the United States. During the ten years between 1820 
and 1830 only 142,900 foreigners entered the United States. 
1 hose, from necessity or choice, soon became Americanized, as is 
well known to thousands, not remaining to be marked by and 
through every action and act as foreigners, down to the third 
generation. Between 1830 and 1840 the number reached 560,000. 
From 1840 to 1850 the flow reached 1,685,100. 

The war period greatly decreased immigration. But from 
t866 to 1870, 1,487,230 foreign inmiigrants reached our shores. 
Between 1870 and 1875, 1,726,790 arrived. Between 1875 and 



5IO A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

1880, 1,085,392 arrived. Between 1880 and 1885, 2,975,682 en 
tered the Union, a large majority of them undesirable as citizens, 
and a great injury to this Republic. 

Then, as all at this day well know, the flow increased and those 
foreigners claimed exclusive privileges and support, and con- 
demned Americans, their laws and usages. 



CHAPTER XL. 

A LESSON OF THE PAST — DANGEROUS BREAKERS IN SIGHT 

BEFORE US. 

ALTHOUGH the occurrence took place in the thirties, yet it 
■'^ is indehbly stamped on my memory that our wise captain of 
the good ship " Frankhn," when on the Caribbean Sea, and when 
that ship was in great peril, he ordered all hands on deck, and 
said, '' Mr. Mate and sailors, attention! Our cargo is valuable, 
and no insurance on it, and I, with others, will suffer a great loss; 
but self-preservation is nature's first law; bear a hand lively, and 
heave every pound of the cargo overboard," and the cargo 
dropped within the ocean's depth, and thirty-three lives were 
saved. 

Wisdom says, *' Check the foreign hordes that are daily and 
hourly walking the ship's gang plank to make a landing on our 
shores, and save the ship of state. Call all hands on deck, and 
place every foreign nation w^ithout discrimination on the Chinese 
bill, to remain in the future at their native homes; for without a 
doubt, self-preservation is nature's first law." 

China was the first, the only nation that possessed the right 
by solemn treaty to make their homes in North America, but 
Sand-Lot Kearney said, " Stop the flow of celestials into the good 
land I have found," and the flow was stopped. The Chinese 
have shown themselves in America to be a useful and a law- 
abiding people. True, they kill some missionaries in China 
Land. I have shown where European nations have done the 
same, more extensively. The Chinese number few criminals and 
no paupers, and in intellect they are superior to the average for- 
eigners who seek our shores. I have known many and know 

511 



512 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

their capacity. Most all can read and write. I have had two as 
my teachers, and their capacity to convey knowledge is wondei- 
fnl, although my teachers were but common Chinese. 

If America has the right to make her own laws without the per- 
mission, or dictation, of foreigners, within or without this Ameri- 
can Union, then there is not the least difficulty in checking the 
disease that is now rapidly sapping the vitality of this Republic. 

The modus operandi can be drafted in a very few lines. Let 
our Government decree that not more than one single thousand 
of the citizens of any nation be permitted to immigrate to the 
United States annually, making no discrimination in the nations 
of the world. The Chinese and Africans to be given equal privi- 
leges with the Europeans. They would be less objectionable 
than the anarchist Germans. 

The immigrants composing this one thousand, to personally 
appear before the American Consul, or a commissioner ap- 
pointed, and receive a certificate permitting him, or her, to enter 
the United States as a settler, and if found to be a suitable citi- 
zen, then to be granted the right to vote for any and all offices of 
the Republic, after a constant residence in the United States dur- 
ing eleven years. This permitted one thousand is not to em- 
brace merchants operating in their calling, or scientific and other 
visitors. Some must be expected to run the blockade. 

If we were at this day to embark in a foreign war, our efficiency 
and strength, per capita, would be reduced far below our effi- 
ciency and strength in the war with England, in 1812, on account 
of the large number of foreigners that we number in our popula- 
tion, and who do not, and cannot possess a love, or an interest, 
in a strange ])eople and a strange land, that they visited to pick 
up dollars. This is not a cheerful thought, but it is the truth. 

My diary says that war was declared against England in 1812 
by a vote of 70 to 48, in the House of Representatives, and 19 to 
13 in the Senate. Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun were the 
most noted war advocates, and President Madison signed the 
war declaration June 18, 1812. 

Peace was declared between England and America bv a treatv 



A LESSON OF THE PAST. 5^3 

at Ghent, in Belgium, on the 24th day of December, 1815, by 
commissioners of the two nations. 



SAD EXPERIENCE. 

All who kept a diary well know that in September, 1847, ^^ 
Cherubiisco, Mexico, that foreign soldiers and their foreign offi- 
cers, who had been trained in arms by Uncle Sam's experts, de- 
serted when in the face of the enemy, and to use the words of the 
court-martial, after deserting to the enemy, they fought longest 
and hardest against the colors which they had sworn to defend; 
they were well trained in arms, and sent many of our faithful 
American soldiers to their death. 

Twenty-nine soldiers of the many who w ent over to the enemy, 
and one officer, were taken prisoners, and sixteen were executed, 
by hanging, at San Angel, on the loth of September. 1847. The 
officers and the men that had deserted the American ranks pre- 
vious to any combat, were not executed, but lashed, branded, and 
drummed out of camp. 

Of the whole number tried 6 were deserters from the Third 
Infantry, 3 from the Fifth Infantry, 2 from the Second Infantry, 
4 from the Seventh Infantry, 6 from the Fourth Artillery, 5 from 
the Third Artillery, i from the First Artillery, 2 from the Second 
Dragoons. A dangerous element to shape the destiny of this 
republican nation. 

To record a life's voyage, each and every scene and occurrence 
that comes prominently before the Avorld is a part and a portion 
of the voyage. After Sailor I defeated, and in a measure ex- 
hibited the injustice in taxation through the courts, there was a 
perceptible ebbing of the tidal wave of wrong for a season, but in 
time the scattered elements of that wrong united to sweep all 
justice before its destructive and blighting course, leaving want 
and desolation in its wake, and Sailor I was compelled by the 
beckoning hand and tearful eyes of justice, to tell the world of 
the many cruel wrongs placed upon a people under the guise of 
law, which I did on the loth of January, 1897, through the col- 



514 A LIFE'S VOYAGE; 

umns of the Davenport " Republican," a journal of Influence and 
ability, and which exhibit of wrong and robbery reads as follows : 

" OUR city's prosperity. 



*' A. C. Fulton Gives His Views of Municipal Matters — Communica- 
tion Appealing to the Business Men's Association — Comments on 
the Present City Tax System. 

" Editor of the ' Republican ': 

" If the Business Men's Association desired to aid in the city's 
prosperity, they can do so by using their influence in checking 
the heavy outlays in times of depression. 

*' The long lists of delinquent taxes plainly tell us of over- 
taxation. Homes of poor men have been knocked down at auc- 
tion, and many mothers and their children have put themselves 
on short allowance of food to save their homes from sale, and the 
imprudent and uncalled-for expenditures are now distressing the 
men that through a life of saving and toil undertook to secure 
funds to support them in old age and aid others. 

" It is well known that at this moment the majority of more 
than one taxing power is training their brains to create offlce 
and extend the outlay of the people's money. They speak of 
creating new officers when the vast city hall is filled with over- 
paid officials. Please examine the pay rolls. 

'* Every man that can count well knows that the taxpayers are 
paying a rent of $500 per month, or $6000 yearly for the use of 
that city hall, as the over $100,000 put into its construction would 
have paid that amount of our city debt, and have stopped the 
l)ayment of $6000 yearly interest. Good reader, can you count? 

*' The vast army of tax makers are now talking of a new jail, 
swimming baths, and of building and of tearing down school- 
houses. Let all those who do not like our present cozy jail, keep 
out of it. We have the water of a pure river to bathe in, and 
cheap baths: we want no impure slops in limited quantities froni 
a factory at a vast and perpetual cost. 



A LESSON OF THE PAST. 5^5 

" As respects the school tax; if the first, second, and third gen- 
eration of Germans will make an advance in greatness and be- 
come Americans, then the twelve German schoolroom.s that in 
capacity equal two of onr school buildings, and which the Ger- 
mans have long controlled and occupied, will supply all present 
wants, and experience plainly tells us that this act would be a 
great benefit to a coming people. ] was informed some years 
back, by a school teacher and a school director, that this foreign 
branch was a worthless waste and an injury: that very few who 
passed their time in those German schoolrooms ever entered the 
high school, especially the German pupils, and that those who 
did enter the high school departed from that institution lacking. 
If this department has been a success, and beneficial, its early 
and later product can be placed before the Business Men's Asso- 
ciation, and if the Business Men's Association will use figures, 
they will discover that the people's outlay of tax money for this 
foreign language department, with its schoolhouses and its many 
contingencies during over a quarter of a century, far exceeds the 
sum that we have paid from the treasury for all our railroads, 
parks, and public buildings combined. Search for beneficial re- 
sults, and you will search in vain, a blank alone exists. 

*' It is well known that galling wrongs drove many of our best 
American citizens from this beautiful city that they loved, to 
make names of fame and worth in less oppressive and more con- 
genial quarters, and their vacated space has been filled up with 
strangers, some looking for work, and others looking for some- 
thing to eat, and many others looking for office, but those facts 
are well known to all. 

" On account of the now situation, I and hundreds of others 
solemnly protest against, and will vote and work against the 
levy of any and all taxes under the long-existing, discriminating, 
and unjust tax assessments, as the tax lists plainly witness. 

" The Business Men's Association well know that taking our 
early advance over all other cities in Territorial days, our grain 
market, pork-packing, flour and sawmills, steam and horse rail- 
roads, gaslight, county and river bridges, and vast river naviga- 



5i6 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

tion we at this day, 1897, should number a population of not less 
than sixty thousand exempt from poverty. 

"As evidence of our deplorable situation, I present the Busi- 
ness Men's Association the report of Mr. John Schmidt, overseer 
of the poor, for the month of November, 1896, which report is on 
file in the auditor's office, and which gives the nationalit) and 
mmibers of the poor that the county aided, as follows: Number 
of Germans, 107; Americans, 57; Irish, 43; Scandinavians, 2; 
Blacks, 8. That during the month the following amounts were 
paid to the above people: To the Germans. $140.50; Americans, 
$25.10; Irish, $12.50; Scandinavians, $6; blacks, $4. The stores 
furnished were as follows: Coal, 920 bushels; flour iii barrels; 
groceries, $155.50; milk, $1; shoes, $11.60; dry goods, $14.25; 
burials, $57.50; transportation, $44.35; medicine, 54 cents. Sent 
to poorhouse, 3; sent to hospital, i; soldiers' relief, $105; rent 
paid during the month, $188; care of insane, $5; board and lodg- 
ing, $85.50; insane department, $1002.50; care of sick, $196.10. 
Rent paid during the month: Germans, $84.50; Irish, $33.50; 
Americans, $17.10; Scandinavians, $7; Bohemians, $4; colored, 

$9-50. 

" Report of John Schmidt for December, 1896: Nationality of 
poor aided: Germans, 109; Americans, 63; Irish, 41 ; Scandinavi- 
ans, 15; Bohemians, 2; colored, 12. 

** Long and hard working I was mulct in the sum of over 
$4500 taxes for hastily voted and partially botched street and 
alley brick pavement, as the tax books bear witness; this pave- 
ment required over $400 more to replace the destroyed side- 
walks. At this day one-fourth of the expensive street pavement 
is cut to pieces through the ignorant act of permitting knifr- 
blade loaded wheels to cut them up. 

'* Brick roadways have been used in Holland for a half century, 
and all wheels for carrying burdens have to be four inches in 
width, or pay double license, and their loads restricted. On the 
cobblestone streets of Vera Cruz, all wheels for carrying burdens 
have to be four inches in width; I have viewed this wise precau- 
tion. The citizens who pay the bulk of the Davenport taxes 



A LESSON OP THE PAST. 51^ 

would have saved money by furnishing wide tires for every teanl 
in the city; with the exception of the ice wagons and a few others, 
the so-called tires are a sham, but in 1895 the council majority in 
caucus said a wide-tire demand would curtail their votes. I 
should not thus complain when the useful, enterprising, and se- 
date Mr. Oliver Sampson, a man of more worth to the world than 
the tax-voting, salary-increasing, and office-making majority of 
I he city council; he was, through grief for the loss of the labor of 
his life through unwise taxation, officially sent to an untimelv 
grave, as hundreds well know. 

" Now comes a food inspector at a large salary; a contention as 
to capacity took place. Mayor Vollmer took the floor and told 
the council in English that the applicant could talk high and low 
German, a panacea to put angel's wings on a Satan, and this in- 
crease of officers, when I can prove and have seen gray-haired 
women with trembling hands raking food from the slop barrels 
of the alleys, and I, through the curse of imprudent and uncalled- 
for taxation could but tender a meager sum to want and poverty. 
Will this hastily created food inspector examine the healthy con- 
dition of those slop barrels? O shame, where is thy blush, or is 
shame ever harbored in cheeks of brass? It is well known to the 
thinking portion of this community that official acts have led to 
distress, poverty, and death. 

" The citizens of Davenport must take back the power that they 
many years back bestowed to be shamefully abused. 

" A chapter on the work of men in Territorial days would be 
interesting, when the task of laying the foundation of empire in 
a wilderness was the stake, not paying office and arbitrary power. 
Then, not now, all the acts and forms before us were created and 
put into active working form and life. The truth is that this 
small community has been and is now too much governed to per- 
mit prosperity; a change is called for, and every intelligent man 
and woman in this community well knows this fact. Old Sailor 
I cannot, will not, calmly stand by and see the hand of wrong 
grappling the throat of justice. 

" Yours with respect, 

" Davenport, January 9, 1896." " A. C, Fulton. 



Si8 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

The Davenport '' Democrat " of May 18, 1898, exhibits the 
open extent of foreign demands on Americans, by pubUshing that 
the Freie Deutsche Schulverein refused to sell property for pub- 
Hc-school purposes, unless the German language should always 
])e taught in the school at the cost of the whole people. 

Sailor I have ever looked upon modern prophets with doubt, 
and little did I think that I would ever enter that mystic sea. 
Very true, long before the revolution of 1776 its coming was pre- 
dicted, and long before the late Rebellion many far-seeing and 
thoughtful persons predicted that the institution of slavery would 
result in disaster to, if not in the destruction of, this Union. 

As this, my record, will most likely endure for many centuries, 
unless some convulsion of nature should shatter the heavens 
above, or the centers beneath the earth, as its race is against time, 
therefore I place a prediction within its pages respecting the dis- 
tant future of this American Republic. 

In time the prudence, economy, labor, and wisdom of our 
fathers will be supplanted by ease, ignorance, and extravagance, 
the seeds of which are now being sown broadcast in every quarter, 
and are bending and binding the backs of the toilers, and the 
frugal, and enterprising down and beneath the wheels of the 
Juggernaut of the oflice-holder and tax-consumer and their 
satellites. 

I predict that our next great national trouble will grow out 
of wrongs created through our enormous and increasing army of 
officials, and the desire to possess power over man, together with 
uncalled-for taxation in all its forms, to support extravagance 
and wrong, or in other words, one-third of the Nation directly, 
or indirectly, claiming and receiving their support through the 
bone, muscle, and brains of the other two-thirds. 

Look at the small territory of New York City, where hun- 
dreds of thousands of dollars are paid out for the right and privi- 
lesre to farm the tax levies and collections; to wrons^ and rob the 
enterprising and working community; to feed and fatten gluttons, 
dishonest vagabonds, and runagates. 

Our lawmakers and tax-creators at this day, 1898, in the vari- 



A LESSON OF THE PAST. ^19 

Otis departments, counting the legislative bodies of our States and 
Territories, numbering forty-eight, together with our National 
Congress, the county, municipal, and school departments, who 
possess the powder to create office and to levy taxes, and who the 
people support, outnumbering those possessing the same power 
in England, Spain, Austria, Germany, Italy, Russia, Denmark, 
and Sweden, all coml)ined. 

Office-farming and politics in the United States w'ill become 
a profession. Bribery and corruption will exist in all political 
parties. They will abide in our legislative halls, in our county, 
city, and school offices, and even the judicial bench will part with 
its integrity. Merit and honesty will be at a discount, whilst dis- 
honesty and low cunning will command a premium. 

Many millions who will live and fatten on their country's ruin 
will be struggling for party supremacy and spoils. Selfishness 
will rule the day. 

The love of country will not exist, but will be forgotten in the 
strife for party and the spoils. No longer will there exist a nation 
of patriots striving for national honor and greatness, and even the 
tombs of the departed great will lose their sanctity. Truth will 
no longer possess value; mercy and honor will be unknown; ears 
will be deaf to the cry of shame; no word of praise or noble act 
will exist to mark upon a monument; wrong and destruction will 
stalk abroad and no mercy will be shown to tears or prayers, and 
greed will disrobe the Goddess of Liberty. 

This is the exquisite synoptic of the events of the distant future. 
The quintessence of elegant misery; a forlorn situation. 

To give all causes for the coming disaster would occupy too 
much space; but I will give the reader a faint idea of the future. 
This Republic will become the pauper's refuge and the office- 
holder's Paradise. There will be a Credit Mobilier in every 
State, county, and city. We will have twenty thousand New 
York Tweeds, and fifty thousand John Kellys, with greater and 
lesser kind, numbering many millions to devastate and blight the 
land. This vast body will act in perfect harmony, as they will be 
united by the cohesive power of public plunder. The press will 



520 A LIPID'S VOYAGfi-. 

become venal and espouse the cause of wrong. Right and justice 
will be but a mockery. An empty Presidential chair will be 
prayed for. Then will an American Cromwell rise to defy and 
overthrow imbecility, wrong, and robbery. Beyond this my 
vision does not, cannot penetrate. 

Sailor I, in 1881, briefly published this coming disaster to our 
Union in the Chicago ** Times"; since that date the destructive 
blight in progress has far outstripped and exceeded my predic- 
tion in its baneful and desolating progress. 

In 1894, a once student of far-famed Mt. Ida, and also a local 
of the Davenport " Democrat-Gazette," requested Sailor 1 to jot 
down a sketch of the birth and life of that institution, which I 
did, and after publication, gave it a space within my diary as 
follows : 

*' LOCAL HISTORY. 

" The Veteran Resident A. C. Fulton Writes Again — A Historieal 
Spot in East Davenport — First a College — Then Metamorphosed 
into Barraeks — Afterzvards a Retreat for the Unfortunate — Nozv 
a Palatial Residence. 



" To the Editor of the ' Democrat ' : 

" Mt. Ida, the home of A. J. Preston, possesses a history 
worthy perhaps of being passed down the corridors of time. The 
land was entered in 1838 by Peter Perry, who was a giant in his 
day. A member of the Canadian parliament and a refugee, of 
whom I purchased it in 1852. 

" In 1854 an eastern teacher, Thayer H. Coddling, who pos- 
sessed more hopes and experience than money, journeyed west 
to establish a college, and who claimed that Iowa was destined to 
be the seat of this Government and Davenport the metropolis of 
the State, and that Mt. Ida was the Mecca that he sought. He 
admitted that his purse contained less than one thousand dollars, 
a small sum for the vast undertaking. 

" I thought the institution at that period would be beneficial 
to the city, and on September 26, 1854, deeded Mr. Coddling the 



A LESSON OF THE PAST. 521 

entire block No. 7 for four thousand dollars — see record, Book 
M, page 122. Not one dollar was paid down by Mr. Coddling 
and never was — see mortgage, Book D, page 611. 

" Davenport did not possess one-third of the brick necessary for 
the large structure, and then late in the season funds ran short 
at the very birth of the institution. On the day of consultation, 
September 28, 1854, where Mt. Ida now stands, I said: Mr. Cod- 
dling, we have to excavate a basement for the college, the clay 
is of first quality for brickmaking, and I have here in sight in this 
piece of woods, forty-five cords of good dry oak wood to burn 
them with. We will here on this ground make the brick and we 
will now this minute stake off the college building and call it Mt. 
Ida. Mr. Coddling responded amen, and on the morrow a large 
force was put to work and Mt. Ida erected. A Mr. Took united 
with Mr. Coddling and a valuable institution of learning was for 
a time conducted. Debts matured and trouble arrived promptly 
on time and closed Mt. Ida. 

" I fitted up the institution to be soon continued, when 1862 
and our Rebellion came, and Davenport was the main supply and 
transporting point for the State. 

" The 28th Iowa regiment appeared at night-fall, no quarters, 
save Mt. Ida. Might, as well as patriotism, said step in and stack 
your arms. Goodness! my goodness! If you desire to see the 
result of a cyclone, quarter a regiment of recruits in your papered 
and well-furnished dwelling or college — locks broken to enter 
rooms. School furniture thrown out and a load of straw thrown 
in, doors ripped oft' th^ir hinges, and locks and knobs broken off, 
out of the way to sleep on, boot prints on the paper of the walls, 
tobacco cuds stuck to the walls and ceilings by the ])est pitchers. 
Outsheds and window stoops were burned for fuel, shade trees 
cut for pole& to carry water on when the cisterns were exhausted. 
A sick soldier was left in the hospital room with a careless home- 
guard for me to see or to bury. Oh, myi oh, myl I felt that 
Uncle Sam or the State of Iowa should bear a portion of the 
burden, and I prepared a bill of $988 damages to be presented to 
the State legislature by Hon. Thomas J. Saunders, but he thought 



522 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

it would be a bad precedent, and it was not presented, and I now 
have the original document before me with the seal and signature 
of the Hon. John C. Bills attached. 

'* In 1865 ^ large number of citizens desired to establish a home 
for the friendless, to be called the Christian Home, and as all were 
to aid in the good work, I consented to sell Mt. Ida and 
grounds for the small sum of $4200, and in October of that year 
I deeded the association the property and placed the $200 pur- 
chase money on their subscription list. (See record, Book S, 
page 251.) 

" Soon the promised supporters and outside lady managers be- 
came dissatisfied with the local superintendents and resolved to 
end the home's existence. Well-dressed and well-fed, hut marble- 
hearted, females assembled within a palatial mansion and all save 
one resolved to evict the superintendents, women, and children 
of the home through starvation. 

" Gaunt, hollow-eyed starvation that very moment stood at Mt. 
Ida's door, but an ever just and watchful Providence immediately 
intervened and sent bedding for the new arrivals, and food in 
abundance for weeks and until outside homes were procured for 
the last inmate of the wrecked Mt. Ida Home. 

*' Astonishing as it should appear, I never received directly or 
indirectly from Mt. Ida and its extensive grounds but four thou- 
sand dollars. 

" The county records state that A. J. Preston paid twenty-one 
thousand dollars for the property; purchased it in two parts, first 
deed dated 1868, I looked for pay through the satisfaction of 
aiding in securing a sure and lasting home for the desiitute. 

" Yours, 

" A. C. Fulton. 

" Davenport, July 29." 

In May, 1897, the good and talented Editor of the " Outlook," 
Mr. Charles Eugene Banks, requested Sailor I to give him a short 
sketch of the past and the present of his city home. And as in 
duty bound I complied as best I could from my diary. 



A LESSON OF' THE PAST. 523 

THE FOUNDING OF EAST DAVENPORT. 



" By A. C. Fulton. 

" Editor Banks of the ' Outlook ': 

'• Good Sir: As requested, I furnish you from my diarv a brief 
sketch of East Davenport's creation from its wilderness davs its 
inarch through the Territorial period down to a modern city 
which may be of interest to the thoughtful in the distant future 
if not to the present world. 

'iThe old city west of Harrison Street has been written up 
annually during many years and those named who owned the 
territory, platted and built within its limits; but interesting and 
beautiful East Davernport, that monopolizes a vast extent of the 
liver and the island view, is never mentioned in historic journals 
yet It possesses a territorial history and footprints on its sands of 



time 



" My great objection to talking or writing respecting the past 
scenes of life, in more than one of Iowa's counties and several 
States of our Union and beyond, is that I am compelled to name 
self; yet when I cannot name self then I know but very little re- 
specting the subject or the occurrences; but when I have been an 
actor and taken my part I have a correct knowledge of the parts 
takeii by otliers in the same cast. 

" During the winter of 1842 several hundred Sac and Fox In- 
dians camped in the contracted valley between the present Catho- 
lic Bishop's mansion and St. Katharine's Hall. On the third of 
the following April one of the tribe that I had aided during the 
winter informed me that they would that day break camp to jour- 
ney to their more permanent home near the Wapsipinicon River 
just west of the Indian line of 183^. I had a great desire to wit- 
ness the departure of the Indians, as I felt it to be the last de- 
parture of the red man of the forest and the plain from this his 
hom^. for many centurfes, and at the same time I desired to re- 
connoiter the adjacent territory of now East Davenport both of 



524 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

which I did with great interest. The most noted feature of the 
act of breaking camp and packing up w^as the silent and syste- 
matic action of the whole tribe. No seventy-four-gun ship com- 
mand and bluster, but all in silent concert moving as does a print- 
ing press, and as his Eastern kin, the Arab, silently stole away. 

" To again attempt as near as possible to witness the scenes of 
1843, 1 on yesterday stood on a pinnacle looking down on this 
Indian camping ground of 1842. But alas! the domes of three 
colleges and the mansions of two bishops were in sight, and the 
spires of ten churches pointed toward the blue sky, whilst in the 
front and on both the flanks of my position street-cars, propelle4 
by the power of electricity, coursed before me and two long trains 
of passenger and freight cars shook the earth as they speeded past 
in the rear. 

" Facts may eclipse fiction's wildest imagination. 
" Goodness! what a change of scenes on life's stage during the 
short period of fifty-five years! On that day, April the third, 
1843, after being the lone pale-face witness of the retreating red 
man, I extended my journey to what was known in Territorial 
days as Stubbs' Eddy. This is the horseshoe bend formed by the 
rising blufif land where now stands Lindsay & Phelps' saw-mill 
and stores and dwellings. My visit was then to purchase this 
valley from Mr. Stubbs and others and convert it into a mill pond 
by placing a straight dam along the river front, elevated above 
the river's high water, with aiitomatic flood-gates to guard 
against land freshets, the dam's surface to be sixt)'-six feet in 
width, to be used as a wagon road in the place' of Uncle Sam's 
winding Territorial Road of that day, which road was the first 
ever established in Scott County. I had previously, in 1842, as 
our county records witness, purchased a river island below^ Syca- 
more Chain, then known as Fulton's Island, and also purchased 
a vast extent of river front and canal ground, and expended a 
large sum of money in surveys and taking soundings, with then 
the intention of creating the river-rapids wa^er-power, which w^as 
to terminate at the vast mill pond of the eddy and which pond 
would add over one-third to its capacity. 



A LESSON OF THE PAST. 525 

"To prepare for this giga^ntic undertaking by a single arm I 
purchased, as the Rock Island records witness, one hundred and 
sixty acres of good oak timber land some three miles above 
Moline, to have it sawed at Mr. Sears' then new saw-mill. In 
time I used a vast quantity of this timber sawed by Mr. Sears, 
and some of it hewn, in building two steam flour-mills on the 
river block at the foot of Brady and Perry streets. I personally 
and alone, on account of lack of funds, rafted this lumber from 
the' Moline saw-mill to the landing at my mill block. One of 
those mills was burned down whilst owned by Burrows & Pretty- 
man; the other was torn down and its machinery moved to a 
mill in Le Claire, to give place for the Packet Company's 
buildings. 

Within this East Davenport horseshoe bend rose in solitude a 
sand and earth mound of a sugar-loaf shape. Grass and dwarf 
hazel bushes lined its regular and artistically formed sides. I had 
more than once explored the Mississippi from its many mouths 
at the Gulf to its contracted limits beyond the Falls of St. An- 
thony, and the East Davenport sugar loaf -mound was then to me 
and now is the greatest curiosity that I noted. Not manv years 
since Lindsay & Phelps removed this mound's remaining height 
of some twenty feet to place an uninteresting pile of lumber on is 
resting place of many thousands of years, where the whirling 
waters had formed it. This mound was not the only wonder of 
East Davenport, for its south base was burrowed into and a one- 
roomed habitation was almost concealed in the excavation, and 
within which for many years before and thereafter resided, as a 
hermit, Mr. James R, Stubbs, one of West Point's early gradti- 
ates. a learned man of extraordinary ability. On rough shelves 
overhead rested rare scientific and other works of ancient authors. 
Mr. Stubbs was Scott County's second magistrate whilst he re- 
sided at his hermit home (Mr. Antoine Le Claire being the first). 
He held his court in the rear of Mr. James A. Telfair's saddlery 
shop on Main Street below Second Street. Mr. Stubbs was one of 
the class of men that carry their library and intelligence into the 
wilderness; one of the class that the intelligent world respects 



526 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

and reverences. \i'hether an inhabitant of an East Davenport sand 
mound or a palace. Mr. Stubhs was delighted to find a learned 
person who would seat himself on c^ne oi his split-timber stools 
and who took an interest in philosophy and astronomy; then the 
hermit would carry his guest into the ethereal world and name 
the fixed stars and explain the transit of Venus. 

*' As all well know, the ancients placed this class of men in the 
ranks of the gods. But Mr. Stubbs was earthly, for the County 
Records, Book A, page 310, says that the United States on July 
6, 1840. sold to James R. Stubbs eighty acres of land, which is 
in our East Davenport, and north of his mound home. 

** The old city had its historic brimstone corner and the new^ 
city had its philosopher's cavern home, and both possessed their 
attractions and had their votaries; and as all well know, the sam.e 
star of w^ilderness days now in 1897 continues to dictate and con- 
trol within its sphere. 

" To do justice to hermit Stubbs' great ability as a scholar 
would require pages, not columns, of your * Outlook,' and would 
require greater ability to produce the pages than Sailor I possess. 

" The mound property, with other land extending to the w^est 
line of the w^ater works property, was purchased from Uncle Sam 
by Andrew J. Hyde on July 6, 1840. Then, as per stipulation, 
it passed into the hands of James R. Stubbs, George L. Daven- 
port, and William R. Shoemaker. Mr. Shoemaker was an under- 
officer on the island. The tAvo latter parties sold their portion 
to Mr. A. Le Claire in 1842, and at this day Book G of Records, 
at page 310, says, A. Le Claire on March 12, 1848, sold 160 acres 
of this land to A. C. Fulton. Within this purchase to Fultou are 
located the Cable saw-mill property, the water w^orks, and the 
Democrat Farm, together with hundreds of dwellings extending 
beyond Locust Street. The wdiole 160 acres was in its wilderness 
state — not a mark of civilization save the wagon tracks on the 
Territorial Road. I immediately and personally dug holes in its 
sward of ages, and planted some fruit trees and grape vines an 
the north side of the present Richardson's dwellings and built 
a tenement house near my Eldorado Spring, which house and 



A LESSON OF THE PAST. 527 

two acres of ground became the property of a slave woman who 
had a history. This spring the hermit and philosopher, Mr. 
Stubbs, greatly appreciated, as also did two lone deer that the 
settlers would not molest and which were frequently seen on the 
sides and summits of the East Davenport hills. 

" The lands on the river front, Avest of the township Une and 
west of the water works, and which extended westward to Le 
Claire's Reserve and north to Locust Street, were taken up by 
a Mr. Ben. Buck, who built a squatter's claim house of a very 
fair quality upon it, just west of the present woolen mills and on 
or near the south side of what is now Front Street. This one- 
roomed house was the first built in East Davenport, as it was 
commenced, as Mr. George L. Davenport stated, but a few days 
after the Indian treaty, at which it was stipulated to give Mr. Le 
Claire one mile square of land. This tract of land, the county 
records say, was sold by the United States to Peter Perry in May, 
1840. Mr. Perry had been a member of the Canadian Parlia- 
ment, but fled to Iowa as a refugee during the Canadian rebellion 
— an occurrence well known to you all. 

''^ Scott County's record. Book i, page 623, says that Peter 
Perry of Canada, on the 21st day of June, 1852, sold this 201 
acres of land to A. C. Fulton. I immediately, by permission of 
the County Court, Judge William Burrows presiding, moved the 
tortuous Territorial Road from the river's bank and placed it 
where it now is with its brick-paved surface. But the tree-grub- 
bing, rock-quarrying, and earth-moving, under the close super- 
vision of the Court, cost me $684. At the same time I erected 
what is now Mr. Nutting's mansion, and three small brick dwell- 
ings on the bluff. I burned the lime for those buildings with 
wood cut on the ground and stone from what is now Prospect 
Park. Then came my erection of the first steam sash, blind, and 
door factory in the State, now known as the Gould Furniture 
Factory, and the erection of the far-famed Mt. Ida followed, pre- 
vious lo the stone mansion at Front Street and Bridge Avenue. 
The bricks in Mt. Ida were dug from its basement and burned 
with wood that surrounded it. My goodness! what work to make 



528 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

a world! Yet I have not told one-third of my part, in which I 
\vonld have to say I erected thirty-nine buildings in three of 
Iowa's counties, and eleven in New Orleans for self, taking them 
together, rating over the average. 

" Although the acknowledgment is awfully galling, yet, in the 
interest of local if not national history, I have to nerve myself 
and say that store-keeping, farming, and milling lost money by 
day and night and creditors from several States came down on me 
like a mountain avalanche, flanked by a phalanx of attorneys; 
and as numbers of our ancient citizens know, poor I had to pad- 
dle my own legal canoe, and also to give a number of the at- 
torneys lessons in law, free of charge. 

" I had to sell JEtiid. Mills and valuable grounds and my East 
Davenport i6o acres, the Illinois i6o acres, 71 acres in the west 
of the city, two farms in Ohio of 320 acres, and a stock of goods 
in Galena, 111., also a stock of goods in Davenport; and after all 
proceeds were paid over I was yet largely in debt and could not 
have purchased a barrel of sea biscuit or a bushel of beans in the 
markets of the world. But I did not ' turn in,' but went aloft 
to duty, paid ofif every dollar of my debts with interest, and con- 
tinued world-building. 

" On that cver-to-be-remembered third day of April, 1843, 
when I visited the Indian camp to witness their final departure, in 
sadness, from their long and once sacred home where the spirits 
of their fathers rested, and I also conferred with the philosophic 
Stubbs at his mound abode, I on my journey to my Davenport 
home approached the long deserted Ben. Buck land claim one- 
roomed house and found it occupied by a family. But oh, my! 
what a sight of distress, want, and misery presented itself before 
me! On a rough, uncomfortable bed in one corner of the small 
room lay a distressed-looking and very sick mother, hardlv able 
to totter across the room when she arose from her couch of pov- 
erty. On a dingy straw tick with a tattered bedspread in the 
opposite corner, on the rough split-log floor, lay a flaxen-haired 
and blue-eyed little girl, just three years of age, whose sunken 
eyes and pale, wan face spoke of dissolution. No money, no food 



A LESSON OF THE PAST. 529 

was within the wretched home save about one peck of small 
wihed potatoes and a hard piece of old-looking corn bread. The 
woman said they had first come from Indiana, then from Illinois, 
and had taken shelter in the lone house six days previously when 
broken down through want and fatigue; tliat her husband had 
gone up the river to Pleasant A^alley to look for work and food, 
and that she looked for his return on the coming day. 

The little innocent did not speak, but its mother thirsted for 
water. I took a leaky wooden bucket without any handle, tight- 
ened its slack hoops, and went to the river and got a bucket of 
pure water. 1 then marched on the double-quick to the then 
small city, purchased an abundance of the most suitable food that 
I could think of, and some matches and tallow candles to give 
light, got a horse and buggy, and hastened to the sick. The lit- 
tle child refused all food or drink and its mother could take but 
very little, yet, I thought, with great benefit. 

" My ancient and ever friend Neriod whispered me to linger- 
for a period on watch, and as the bright April sun was just bid- 
ding the world good-night the little innocent cast its eyes to- 
ward its sick mother, gave a gasp and winged itself to heaven. 
This was the first pale-face death and funeral that took place east 
of Rock Island Street, within the now city limits. I placed the 
tattered bedspread and the little body on a rough bench, and with 
sadness went to my home, and on the morrow procured its 
grave, coflfin, and suitable apparel, which Mrs. Fulton put in form. 
We got a carriage and a Miss Sophia Fisher, whose Philadel- 
phia parent, Samuel Fisher, erected and resided in the attractive 
mansion on our Brady Street which was not very long since de- 
molished to make room for the present Davis Block, and jour- 
neyed to the wretched abode. The two ladies dressed the blue- 
eyed departed and placed it in its narrow home. Its sick mother 
could not leave her humble home and we performed the final sad 
act. 

** The cheeks of the three strange mourners were pallid and 
tears of sorrow flowed from their eyes when the little innocent, 
cold in death, reached the dark and damp bottom of its un- 



530 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

timely grave, and silent prayers were offered up to the great 
Supreme. 

" Singular would it be if in the estimation of the spirits of the 
good and great, that the simplicity of the life and the solemnity 
of the funeral of this half-starved child of Iowa's rugged frontier 
should eclipse that of those who receive towering monuments 
and of those who wear a diadem. 

*' Yours, 

" A. C. Fulton. 

" Davenport, la., May 12, 1897." 

Amongst my great trials and hardships during a life's voyage 
I would have to wait for 1830, or some other date to swing 
around, and whilst at sea in a ship's dim forecastle, rewTite a 
burlesque Connecticut blue-law^ code, to be handed, when reach- 
ing shore, to a reporter of the New^ Orleans " Bulletin," to be 
published in that journal, and soon thereafter to be republished 
in connection wath other matter in a bound volume, with ancient 
type, and dated back to Puritan days (by a firm that did not ex- 
ist at the date of the volume), as the genuine blue law^s: to cause 
all the world and their w ives to exclaim, aw^ful Puritans ! 

In time thereafter a journal, which is now before me, in con- 
nection with other matter, publishes as follow^s: 

" The ' Blue Laws ' of the New^ Haven colony, so called be- 
cause they were printed on blue paper, w^ere not the blue laws 
you think they were. A few years ago A. C. Fulton of this city 
published what he called the ' Blue Laws ' of Connecticut, and 
though pure fiction, they were spread all over the country as real 
laws. By this you have been misled. You have not read the 
true laws. While they required strict observance of the Sab- 
bath, they were not otherwise oppressive." 

In this, as in almost every instance, when I use a published 
article, I hand the publisher the original article, to set his type 
from. Some articles Sailor I value too highly to trust them out 
of my locker. As in the distant future I may require them to 



A LESSON OF THE PAST. 531 

prove that which the ordinary man on shore will pronounce an 
impossibility. 

To place a life's voyage on my record, it is necessary to take the 
following lines from the columns of the Davenport (la.) weekly 
"Outlook" of October 31, 1896, a historical, literary, and 
dramatic journal of note and ability, edited by Charles Eugene 
Banks. 

" If yoUr heart be in the promise your hand will be in the per- 
formance. 

"To give even a hint of the life work of a man who has spent 
nearly seventy years of active life west of the Alleghenies and to 
help to make history that covers the most wonderful years of 
the wonderful New World require more pages than are com- 
prised in this publication. Ambrose C. Fulton was born in Ches- 
ter Cotmty, Pennsylvania. Farmer boy, sailor, merchant, the- 
atrical manager, editor before, and when he was twenty-four 
years old he had become a large property-owner in the city of 
New Orleans. It was a company raised by him that opposed the 
Mexicans in Texas in 1835, captured the town of San Antonio, 
and caused the withdrawal of the Mexican troops from the State, 
which act eventually gave us Texas and California, and changed 
the destiny of the Union, In 1842 Mr. Fulton came to Daven- 
port, then little more than a village, and since that time until very 
recently he has been active in so many enterprises here that the 
history of Davenport could not be written without frequent allu- 
sion to his name. He built the first Davenport merchant flouring 
mill, the first steam flour mill, called the first meeting to take 
steps toward building the first railroad, and spent much time and 
money pushing it westward through the State. He has acquired 
considerable property but has made many liberal donations. 
Four different churches were deeded choice building lots through 
Mr. Fulton's generosity. His knowledge of the country about 
New Orleans was utilized by the Government during the war, and 
the many maps drawn by him were very useful to the Govern- 



532 ^ Lrti^E'S VOYAGE. 

ment. He has borne civic honors modestly and his wisdom may 
be found in many of the State's most useful laws. 

" The picture we give of Mr. Fulton was taken some time ago 
when he was in his seventy-fifth year, but he is still quite strong, 
and the tire that drove him on to conquer wildernesses is far 
from burning low in his veins. He does a great deal of work 
every day, the most valuable being that on his memoirs of the 
West during the last eighty years. Hardly a phase of our ad- 
vancement but he has had some connection with it, or personal 
knowledge of it. Always a keen observer, he has a store of in- 
formation that will prove invaluable to the world, and he gives 
several hours every day to putting it to paper. He has, like Gen- 
eral Grant, the most wonderful style for getting events into a 
small compass. A five-thousand-word sketch, written for the 
' Republican's ' Annual, last December, is the most condensed bit 
of interesting history I ever read. Future historians will set him 
down as the most lively figure in the struggle that has made the 
fri-Cities great. For over fifty years lie has resided here, and 
no man can lay a finger on a dishonest act of his. All his affairs, 
both public and private, have been conducted in such a manner as 
to win him the respect of the community. Truthful, honest, 
earnest, with a will that knew no earthly law superior to itself, 
he has fought his way through life, a faithful citizen, a zealous 
officer, a patriot always; he has a storehouse of memories richer 
than the mines of Ophir, and the knowledge of having faced a 
thousand unpleasant duties, to overcome all in the end, to cheer 
the sundown of his days." 

In 1897 a touch of the yellow fever appeared in New Orleans 
and other localities. The occurrence and its results were pub- 
lished in many journals. To compare the situation with the 
scourge of 1832, the Chicago " Tribune," on October 25, 1897, 
published as follows, which I enter on my record as an occur- 
rence during a life's voyage. 



A LESSON OF THE PAST. 533 

" THE YELLOW FEVER AND CHOLERA OF THE THIRTIES. 

" Davenport, Ia., October 22. 
" Editor of the ' Tribune ' : 

" Your journal daily reports a few deaths in New Orleans. 
Then on October 12 it says: ' It begins to look now as if from 
thirty to forty cases and from four to six deaths will be daily re- 
ported until Jack Frost puts in an appearance.' 

" My goodness! A mere bagatelle. Someone should inter- 
view a few of the old residents of New Orleans of the '30s, and 
also resurrect some of the journals of that day, whose chiefs then 
tied from the stricken city, leaving their subordinates in com- 
mand. The census of 1830 gives the City of New^ Orleans a 
population of 48,680. The yellow fever deaths report in 1832. 
which was immediately followed by Asia's cholera, places the 
victims at 10,000, which was over one-fifth of the population. 

" At one period the living could not bury the dead, and many 
corpses lay over night in the Potter's Field and in the graveyards 
unburied, many of them wrapped in blankets, as coffins or boxes 
could not be procured. 

" Hundreds were buried in 1)ulk in an endless excavated ditch 
that was always kept open. 1 hey were placed two in depth and 
lime thrown on them. This ditch was the then swamp, back 
of the Catholic graveyard, at the foot of Customhouse Street. 

" The risk of attack and death was against the unacclimated. 
For instance, a Mr. Cameron of Lancaster, Pa., a contractor, 
shipped to New^ Orleans during the previous fall some 180 canal 
diggers, mostly Irish, as a portion of his forces, to excavate a sail- 
ing vessel canal known as the New P)asin Canal, between the 
city and Lake Pontchartrain. This cypress-swamj) canal was a 
forerunner sample of the M. de Lesseps Panama Canal in deaths 
and money outlay, as the combined attack, of yellow fever and 
cholera placed over 200 of Mr. Cameron's workmen in untimely 
graves. ^ ■"" 

'* Four of us in a boarding house on Canal, near Rampart 
Street, w^ere taken down in quick succession and three died. I 



534 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

was in good trim to stand a siege, as I had but recently parted 
from the pure ocean breeze. Whilst convalescent I saw drays 
and furniture wagons passing my window carrying corpses to the 
burial grounds, some of them having two, wrapped in blankets. 
And the death wagon daily patrolled the levee to pick up the 
stranger dead. 

" At that day the many miles of shipping levee, with its vast 
bulk of cotton, tobacco, hemp, and every description of produce 
and the goods of many nations, had its permanent and its tran- 
sient population numbering many. 

" A. C. Fulton." 

The headwaters of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca are 
1550 feet above the sea's surface. 

The headwaters of the Missouri are 6000 feet above the sea's 
level. 

The Ohio River at Pittsburg is 700 feet above the sea. 

Chicago stands 590 feet above the sea. 

New York is 22 feet above the sea. 

The river at New Orleans is but 1 1 feet above the sea. 

Omaha, Neb., stands 960 feet above the sea. 

Egypt's greatest pyramid at El Guzeh has a base of 740 feet 
square, and a height of 450 feet. 

The Sphinx is a human-headed lion, 188 feet in length. 

The Cincinnati Suspension Bridge has a span of 1057 ^^^^ 
stretched 102 feet above low water. 

The Suspension Bridge at Niagara Falls has a span of 821 
feet, elevated 245 feet above the river. 

The Fribourg (Switzerland) suspension bridge has a span of 
870 feet elevated 175 feet above the river. 

The first known suspension bridge w^as built at a very early day 
by the Chinese. 

The now-existing London " Times " was first issued in 1785. 

The first American newspaper w^as published in Boston in 
1690. 

In 1832 Mr, Morse, an American, exhibited the utility of the 



A LESSON OF THE PAST. 535 

magnetic telegraph, and in 1844 put a line in operation between 
Baltimore and the Washington Capital, a distance of 40 miles. 

The sun is 870,000 miles in diameter, and the moon is 2160 
miles in diameter, and is located 238,650 miles distant from the 
earth. 

Sailor I had but little money to expend, but I did work long 
and hard, unrequited, but with efficiency, whilst many who had 
money reaped where they had not sown, and placed their money 
in their graves. 

Now the river's bridging and the depot and warehouses of the 
Land Grant M. & M. Railroad stands on our Fifth Street, and the 
depots and the warehouses of the Davenport and St. Paul, and the 
D. I. & D. Railroad stands on our river front. Their commerce 
extending to every State in the Union, and electricity has re- 
lieved the poor mules of my street-car line work. 

The good and just Davenport " Times," of November 4, 1897, 
gives credit for a trifling part of my toil as follows: 

*' NOT A NEW PROJECT. 



'* The Crescent Bridge Merely a Development of an Old Idea — Hon. 
A. C. Fulton Proposed a Bridge at the Western Extremity of the 
City Some Sixteen or Eighteen Years Ago — An Old-time Letter 
Quoted. 

" The Crescent Bridge is not the product of a day. Our citi- 
zens are fully aware of this fact. After a series of tergiversation 
and dilator iness the work upon the piers of the structure has been 
initiated. Promoter Blair took years — two, at any rate — to effect 
this, and our own people feel satisfied with pardoning the past if 
the future will show the fruition of that estimable gentleman's 
promises. 

" But the Crescent Bridge is not new. The surveys and sound- 
ings which have already been taken for the structure and were 
accepted by the government, are not the first ones made for a 
bridge at that point. 



536 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

" A)30ut a dozen or fourteen years ago, A. C. Fulton asked J. 
M. Eldridge to make a motion in the old Board of Trade, the 
predecessor of the Business Men's Association, that a commit- 
tee be appointed to organize, to build, and to operate a railroad 
bridge and to make the necessary preliminary soundings and 
surveys. 

" The motion was made and Mr. Fulton seconded it in a speech 
covering a project for the construction of a railroad from Pitts- 
biu'gh and along the line now occupied ])y the B. C. R. & N. 
Raihva)' in this city, thence to Sioux City. But Mr. Fulton was 
not the well-groomed, well-nourished Frank P. Blair, who is 
somewhat of a hypnotist. The enterprising pioneer was fully a 
dozen years too early for the success of the scheme. The idea 
was almost hooted at by the business men at that time — the same 
gentlemen who, a decade later, pledged their association to the 
tune of ten thousand dollars for the assistance of the self-same 
scheme promoted and advocated by Mr. Blair. 

'* In order to kill the project Mr. Fulton was rather insultingly 
appointed a committee of one to look into the matter. Nothing 
daunted, our citizen heartily entered into the task, at about the 
same location now cumbered with the Rock Island shore abut- 
ment of the Crescent Bridge. 

" In writing to the old ' Gazette ' some dozen years ago, Mr. 
Fulton elaborates upon his preliminary work, and by quoting him 
in full the ' Times ' will violate no confidence. His letter is as 
follows : 

" ' Editor of the " Gazette ": 

'• ' Our city and county are not fully developed, and to develop 
them we must have more railroads. 

" ' Every twenty-five miles of territory in width will support 
a railroad and pay a fair dividend if water is kept out of its stock. 
In canvassing the matter we must aim at an eastern connection. 
I will give my own individual and original,, idea, and no doubt 
someone can improve on it. My idea would be to work up a 
line between Davenport and Pittsburgh, and thence westward 








GENERAL WEYLER OF CUBA. 



A LESSON OF THE PAST. 537 

through Tipton and Marion and Cedar Rapids and Sioux City. 
We must traverse territory unoccupied by railroads except to 
cross and tap them where it will pay.' 

[That Mr. Fulton was right, there is no question at this time. 
The spur of the Rock Island Railroad, called the B. C. R. & N., 
built since then, and leading to Marion and Cedar Rapids, etc., 
proves that Mr. Fulton's idea was the one thing needed to in- 
sure sufficient shipping facilities. The claim of Mr. Blair, that 
the new Crescent Bridge will tap the lines on the east, connecting 
with the coal fields of the Keystone State, as also the metropolis 
of the Knickerbocker State, is also a good rebuttal evidence on 
the behalf of plaintifif Fulton, in the case of A. C. Fulton, vs. Pub- 
lic Opinion, a decade and several years ago. — Ed.] 

" ' In order to efifect this, the Davenport, Sioux City and Pitts- 
burgh line will find itself obliged to cross the Mississippi River 
at this point, and that point in the western end of the city. In 
order to ascertain the practicability of this bridging at the point 
mentioned, I proceeded to plat the several islands and take their 
bearings and make soundings in the river, until high water 
stopped my operations. I procured proper sounding rods, 
chartered a boat and crew, and with an instrument kindly fur- 
nished by Surveyor Tom Murray, I entered upon the work by 
driving an abutment stake on the southern verge of Hall's island 
over which we erected a staff and nailed the American Flag. . . 
From this stake we took a bearing south nineteen degrees west, 
to the Rock Island shore, where we also planted a stake, having 
reconnoitered the territory eastward as far as Milan. The river 
soundings were also found to be favorable — more so, in fact, than 
we anticipated. Basing our measurements at low water, we 
found — with the exception of the channel which is located near 
the Rock Island shore and some 250 feet in width, with about 
10 feet of water — that the remainder of the distance has a depth 
varying from 3 up to 7 feet; add to these feet the stage of water 
at the present time and it will give you the total depth of the 
river at the bridge location at the present day. We also found 
rock bottom to prevail at nearly every portion of the distance. . . 



538 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

" * Davenport must keep pace with other cities and States by 
both water and railroad faciHties, and I am satisfied that the Hen- 
nepin canal and the Sioux City & Pittsburgh Railroad will create 
a grand revolution throughout the entire northwest. While the 
General Government will construct the former the people of the 
cities, villages, and towns, and the farming community can and 
should construct the latter, which will add fully twenty-five per 
cent, to the value of their possessions, as well as a large sum 
through the facilities of communication and cheap transportation. 

" * A. C. Fulton.' 

" To give form and life to this momentous undertaking Mr. 
Fulton drew up a charter naming the following incorporators: 
A. F. Williams, James Thompson, J. J. Thompson, W. C. 
Wadsworth, T. W. McClelland, H. M. Martin, Nicholas Kuhnen. 
Sr., D. N. Richardson, Jacob N. Eldridge, George French, A. 
Burdick, Julius Schuett, A. J. Hirschl, J. R. Nutting, S. P. Bry- 
ant, T. D. Eagal, A. C. Fulton. 

'' Mr. Fulton duly recorded this charter at the State capitol at 
his own expense, and more than one incorporator living in the 
present day will be astonished to learn that he once filled such an 
important position. 

" Without a shadow of doubt, had Mr. Fulton departed this 
world prior to t88i no B. C. R. & N. Railroad would ever have 
entered this city, neither would the Crescent Bridge be now a 
dawning possibility. 

*' Mr. Fulton furnished two thousand dollars to give our recent 
railway acquisition life, and such an amount would gladly be 
given toward the beneficent completion of his old-time and be- 
loved project, that of bridging the Father of Waters at the west- 
ern extremity of this city." 

This report of the Davenport '' Times," refers to the last of the 
Mississippi's bridges. 

The year 1897 came around and a citizen of San Antonio, Tex., 
wrote Sailor I for information of early days within that State; 



A LESSON OF THE PAST. 539 

which information, when written, was requested by a reporter of 
the Davenport " RepubHcan," and I have to record it as an inci- 
dent during a Hfe's voyage. 

" THE ONLY SURVIVOR. 



** A. C. Fulton, Probably the Last of the Gallant Texan' Army — Some 
Interesting Facts About flic Texan War of Independence — A Let- 
ter of Inquiry. ■. 

" It is not generally known to our citizens that A. C. Fulton of 
this city was one of the gallant band of volunteers that went 
from New Orleans to Texas in 1835 to assist the gallant Texans 
in their fight for independence. Mr. Fulton took part in the 
campaign of that year, assisting in driving the Mexican armv 
from Texas soil, and then returned to New Orleans, slightly 
wounded. 

" It is probable that Mr. Fulton is the last survivor of that gal- 
lant struggle to throw ofT the yoke of an oppressor, and this fact 
is borne out by the receiving of a letter, a few days since, from a 
business man of Texas, asking if Mr. Fulton could give anv in- 
formation concerning veterans of that war or their heirs. The 
fact that a native-born Texan, who was living at the scene of the 
stirring times of that day, and among men who should know the 
early history of the State, bears out the belief that Mr. Fulton 
must be the last survivor of the war. A ' Republican ' reporter 
in conversation with Mr. Fulton learned of this letter, and suc- 
ceeded in persuading that gentleman to allow his answer to be 
published, as it is full of interesting historical information. The 
answer reads as follows: 

" ' Davenport, Ia., November 6, 1897. 
"'Mr. J. C Hatch: 

'''Good Sir: Your letter of inquiry respecting the names of 

soldiers engaged in the Texas Revolution of 1835 and 1836, the 

State they came from, and their residence, if living, and their 

heirs if dead, and other questions was received on time; but I 



S40 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

was not in shape to write you, nor am I in proper trim to now 
write YOU. My eyes and my hand have failed since the thirties. 

** * I cannot name a single living volunteer, and know of no sol- 
dier's heirs. I can give the names of many dead, but all of those, 
so far as I know, were young men without any property in Texas 
or elsewhere. For instance, Wilson and Anderson, Christian 
names unknown to me, the first of the volunteers and the only 
two to fall at the battle of the Mission, one from Louisiana and 
one from Mississippi. 

" ' Most all I personally knew were the volunteers from the 
United States — those of 1835, whom I aided to muster in at New 
Orleans, yet I could not give the names or States of one-tenth of 
them. 

" ' Within the past thirty years I have visited Texas, Mexico, 
and all the Southern States, save one, and advertised in New 
Orleans journals for the location of some of the Texas Volun- 
teers of 1835 and found none. 

" ' Since 1842 I have sighted but two of those volunteers of 
1835. One was Captain Thomas W. Ward, the other Private 
John Pierce, who I sighted in 1881 in Cuba. Mr. Pierce had re- 
sided in Cuba for twenty years and was one of the number paci- 
fied by General Weyler. 

" ' After the campaign of 1835 I returned to New Orleans 
slightly wounded and was not in the campaign of 1836. 

" " After the surrender of General Cos, at the Alamo, Decem- 
ber II, 1835, and all Mexican forces had retreated from the 
State of Texas, the general opinion was that no further armed 
action would be taken to subdue Texas. 

" ' At this battle most all of the slain were United States volun- 
teers. The survivors, having but little money and no homes to 
retreat to for shelter, quartered at Golidad and the Alamo. 
Those within the Alamo to be put to death on March 6, 1836. 
by Santa Anna, and a majority of those at Golidad shot to death 
by General Urrea on the 27th of the same month, after they had 
surrendered and given up their arms. Those massacres greatly 
reduced the numbers of our volunteers. 



A LESSON OF 'THE PAST. 54! 

'* * Then came the bold expedition under Colonel Johnson and 
Major R. Morris of New Orleans, for the capture of Matamoras, 
in which expedition two-thirds of them lost their lives. Then in 
1841 the remnant of my once companions formed an expedition 
for the subjection of New Mexico. Many lost their lives througli 
hardships in their mountain march, and the balance were be- 
trayed and captured at San Miguel and most of them put to 
death by Armijo, governor of New Mexico, who was the General 
Weyler of his day; leaving, so far as I know, not one single vol- 
unteer soldier to report to you. 

Very respectfully, 

" ' A. C. Fulton.' " 

At a very early day, when daily journals, periodicals, and books 
did not lay around by the thousands, as they now do in 1897, I fell 
in with the published Declaration of Independence. Its genius 
and wisdom immediately attracted my attention, and I considered 
it a valuable prize to capture and place within my diary, and it is 
my duty to here record it for coming generations, as its few pages 
are of greater value than thrice the number that Sailor I could 
produce and present to the coming reader. It will consume but 
little ink, and why not record it for distant ages? 



THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, I776. 

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of 

America. 

t 

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for 
one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected 
them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, 
the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and 
of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of 
mankind requires that they should declare the causes which im- 
pel them to the separation. 



542 A2 LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created 
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain un- 
alienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pur- 
suit of Happiness. That to secure these rights. Governments are 
instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the con- 
sent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government 
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People 
to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying 
its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in 
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety 
and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Govern- 
ments long established should not be changed for light and tran- 
sient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that 
mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, 
than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they 
are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpa- 
tions, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to 
reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their 
duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards 
for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of 
these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains 
them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history 
of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated in- 
juries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establish- 
ment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, 
let Facts be submitted to a candid world. 

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and 
necessary for the public good. 

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate 
and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till 
his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has 
utterly neglected to attend to them. 

He has refused to pass other Laws for the acconmiodation of 
large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the 
right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable 
to them and formidable to tyrants only. 



A LESSON" OP THE PAST. 543 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, un- 
comfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public 
Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance 
with his measures. 

He has dissolved the Representative Houses repeatedly, for 
opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the 
people. 

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause 
others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable 
of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their 
exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the 
dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. 

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; 
for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of For- 
eigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration 
hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of 
Lands. 

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing 
his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. 

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the 
tenure of their oflfices, and the amount and payment of their 
salaries. 

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither 
swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their sub- 
stance. 

He has kept among us, in times of peace. Standing Armies 
without the Consent of our legislature. 

He has alYected to render the Military independent of and su- 
perior to the Civil Power. 

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction 
foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; 
giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation : 

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us : 

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for 
any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of 
these States: 



544 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world : 

For imposing taxes on us without our Consent: 

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by 
Jury: 

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended 
offenses: 

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbor- 
ing Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and 
enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and 
fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these 
Colonies: 

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable 
Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Govern- 
ments: 

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring them- 
selves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases what 
soever. 

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his 
Protection and Waging War against us. 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burned our 
towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. 

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign merce- 
naries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, 
already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely 
paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the 
Head of a civilized nation. 

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the 
high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the 
executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves 
by their Hands. 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has en- 
deavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merci- 
less Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistin- 
guished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. 

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for 
Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have 



A LESSON OF THE PAST. 545 

been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose charac- 
ter is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is un- 
fit to be the ruler of a free People. 

Nor have We been wanting in attention to our British brethren. 
We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their 
legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We 
have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and 
settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and 
magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our com- 
mon kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevi- 
tably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They 
too have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We 
must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our 
Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Ene- 
mies in War, in Peace Friends. 

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of 
America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Su- 
preme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, 
in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these 
Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colo- 
nies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; 
that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, 
and that all political connection between them and the State of 
Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as 
Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War. 
conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and do 
all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right 
do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance 
on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to 
each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. 

John Hancock. 

Neiv Hampshire— ]os,\3h Bartlett, \\m. \Miipple, Matthew 
Thornton. 

Massachusetts Bay — Saml. Adams, John Adams, Robt. Treat 
Paine, Elbridge Gerry. 



546 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

Rhode Island — Step. Hopkins, William Ellery. 

Connecticut — Roger Sherman, Sam'el Huntington, Wm. Wil- 
liams, Oliver Wolcott. 

New York — Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frans. Levels, Lewis 
Morris. 

Nczv Jersey — Richd. Stockton, Jno. Witherspoon, Fras. 
Hopkinson, John Hart, Abra. Clark. 

Pennsylvania — Robt. Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benja. Frank- 
lin, John Morton, Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James 
W'ilson, Geo. Ross. 

Dehncare — Caesar Rodney, Geo. Read, Tho. M'Kean. 

Maryland — Samuel Chase, Wm. Paca, Thos. Stone, Charles 
Carroll of Carrollton. 

J^irginia — George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Th. Jefferson, 
Benja. Harrison, Thos. Nelson, jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter 
Braxton. 

North Carolina — Wm. Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn. 

South Carolina — Edward Rutledge, Thos. Heyward, Junr., 
Thomas Lynch, Junr., Arthur Middleton. 

Georgia — Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, Geo. Walton. 



The pioneer members of the Iowa Legislatures formed an asso- 
ciation of which the judges of the upper courts are members. 

The object is social reunion, and the forming of the legal his- 
tory and occurrences of pioneer days. The sessions are held bi- 
ennially at the State capital. 

The first session of the association took place at the State capi- 
tal in February, 1886. 

A committee of members select, previous to each session, some 
of the members to talk or write up their pioneer days. Sailor I, 
with others, was selected to talk or write to the sixth biennial ses- 
sion. Upon which request I, with fear and doubt of capacity, 
wrote the august assembly as follows; which as a portion of a 
life's voyage I am compelled to place upon my record. 



A Lesson of the past. S47 

'* PIONEER HISTORY. 



"Interesting Sketch of Early Days Written by Hon. A. C. Fulton for 
Pioneer Lawmakers — Forthcoming Historical Work. 

" Learning that our citizen, Hon. A. C. Fulton, had furnished 
to the Pioneer Lawmakers a sketch of early days, the ' Republi- 
can ' requested a copy, which follows : 

" ' Davenport, L\., January 7, 1898. 
" ' To Colonel John Scott, President, and the Honorable Mem- 
bers of the Pioneer Lawmakers' Association of Iowa: 
" ' Gentlemen : A journal now before me informs me that I and 
others are requested to verbally or through writing lay before the 
sixth session of the Association our acts and recollections of Iowa 
pioneer days. 

" ' During our sessions of ten years Iowa's historical and legis- 
lative fields have been well gleaned. Territorial and infant State 
days have been rehearsed by many honorable members who have 
given an interesting history of their entrance and the part they 
took to build up a finished world in a wilderness, reducing the 
labor of those in the rear. When each member of the associa- 
tion furnishes his page, a fair history of Iowa and beyond will 
exist. As in duty bound I must add my page to history. 

*' ' I entered the Mississippi River by Pass a Loutre from the 
Gulf of Mexico in 183 1 under adverse circumstances, to imme- 
diately ship again for the West Indies, under the then good pay 
of sixteen dollars per month. 

" ' I again entered that river and in December, 1831, visited the 
then sparsely inhabited States of Mississippi and Florida. The 
population of Mississippi, then numbering but 136,690, and that 
of Florida but 34,790, Indians not included. We had taken pos- 
session of Florida and formed a Territorial government there but 
ten years previous to my visit. I then settled permanently in 
New Orleans. I passed a portion of 1835 and 1836 in Texas, 
then a state of Mexico, where life was at a discount and human 
blood freely flowed. 



548 A LIFE'S VOYAGi^. 

'* * In 1838 I made a sea voyage from New Orleans to New York 
and journeyed back to New Orleans by land over the Allegheny 
Mountains via Wheeling, Va., and St. Louis, Mo. I quartered 
for a few days at Vandalia, the State capital of Illinois, on the 
Kaskaskia River, and attended the legislature then in session, 
and debating on the question of the removal of the capital to 
Chicago or to Springfield. Cairo forbade the act of its removal 
to Chicago, as she w^as then contending with Chicago for the 
supremacy. Whilst at Vandalia I entered 160 acres of Uncle 
Sam's land south of and near the capital city. 

" * This extended inland journey, taking in many large States 
with their mountain passes and their long stretches of unin- 
habited prairie and dilating valleys, startled the imagination and 
presented a wild grandeur never to be forgotten. But appropri- 
ate, calls a halt, and orders me to the hamlet of Davenport, la., 
where I made a landing from New Orleans on July 4, 1842, now 
over fifty-five years passed and gone. 

" ' I established a general store at the hamlet and almost im- 
mediately joined a Mr. William Bennett and Mr. Lambert, to 
be a half-owner of a water-power created by the Wapsipinicon 
Falls in Buchanan County. Mr. Bennett had created a log house 
with two rooms and a shed-roofed kitchen, the first wiiite man's 
habitation ever erected in that country. 

'* * We, with great hardship and labor, dammed the W^apsipini- 
con River and erected an ordinary frontier grist mill, built a ware- 
house and blacksmith shop. We had to haul our sawed lumber 
from Dubuque, Irut the bulk of all our lumber, even the flooring 
of dwellings had to be procured from the forest with the ax. Oh, 
my, the task to make a world! 

*' ' We fondly hoped to plant the metropolis of the great West 
at Quasqueton. On August 5, 1842, the entire population of 
Buchanan County numbered fifteen, self included. 

'' ' In the spring of 1843 the Buchanan County lands were sold 
at auction in the towai of Marion, and I purchased, and in Feb- 
ruary, 1844, sold the town of Quasqueton to William W. Had- 
din for a mere bagatelle, as the county records now witness. 



A LESSON OF THE PAST. 549 

" ' I did not cease mill-building, but in 1847 erected the two 
first steam merchant mills in Scott County, one of them costing 
fourteen thousand dollars. 

Time brought 1854 around and the presidency of the State 
senate caused a deadlock for many days, to the great injury of 
the State. I, a Free-soil Republican, broke from my moorings 
and placed the Hon. M. L. Fisher of Clayton County, an avowed 
Pro-slavery Democrat, in the president's chair, for which act I 
received the censure of many. 

During the extra session of 1856 a grant of public land for 
railroad purposes was accepted by the State and our railroad laws 
were enacted and are now amongst the laws that exist in their 
original form. Sailor I had the honor to originate and draft 
those laws, and act as their guardian. 

During the session of 1855, when the main question 
was Nebraska or anti-Nebraska, or the extension of sla- 
very, and party lines were strained, the supposed candi- 
date for United States senator was a friend and a citizen 
of my district and who would be one of the arbitrators. 
But, as I had when under trying circumstances at sea, pledged 
myself ever to battle against human slavery, I had to disobey the 
almost unanimous petition of my constituents to abandon the 
Hon. James Harlan, notwithstanding he had received but four 
votes at the previous count. But I stood by and saw him elected 
to make Iowa known at home and in distant lands. To have 
withdrawn would decree his defeat. 

" ' I leave the rejection or the confirmation of this momen- 
tous history with the Hon. James Harlan. 

Respectfully yours, 

" ' A. C. Fulton.' 

" Another good act of Senator Fulton merits mention and 
preservation, as it was an act of lasting and vital importance to 
the people of the state of Iowa: 

" The senate proceedings of December 16, 1854, now before 
us, says: 



550 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

" ' Senator Coop, by leave, introduced a bill defining a stan- 
dard weight per bushel for stone coal, and making that weight 
seventy pounds per bushel. 

" * Senator Fulton moved to strike out " seventy " and insert 
" eighty," which, after debate, was adopted. 

" At that day a very few coal scales existed in the State, The 
bushel was the measure." 



CHAPTER XLI. 

TRAGEDY OF THE OCEAN A SLAVE OF PIRATES THRILLING 

REMINISCENCES. 

! HAVE just picked up the St. Louis "Globe-Democrat" of this 
month, April, 1897. To exhibit the horrors of the seas at an 
early day I copy from that journal verbatim as follows : 

" A SLAVE OF PIRATES. 



" Thrilling Reiniuisccnccs of a Texas Negro Centenarian — Captured 
by Bueeaneers When a Small Boy — Crezv and Passengers of the 
Ship Forced to Walk the Plank — Fiendish Aets of Barbarity. 

" An old negro whom the white people believed to have been 
much more than one hundred years old died on the Brule cot- 
ton plantation, near All Seeing Eye, in Texas, a short time ago. 
The negroes called him Old Pirate, from the fact that he never 
tired of talking of his adventures at sea. To the white people he 
has ahvays been known as Uncle Jolly, a name which he main- 
tained was given to him by Lafitte's pirates when he was a boy, 
from the fact that he was sprightly and always in a good humor. 

'* Uncle Jolly was carefully looked after in his old age by the 
Avhite people, with whom he had been an object of great interest. 
Many of the descendants of the wealthy family to whom he be- 
longed when a slave are still living, and there are few of them 
who have not sat at the old man's feet when they were children 
and listened to his blood-curdling stories of the revelries and 
cruelties of the buccaneers of the gulf. 

" According to their story, he was born a slave on one of the 
islands of the West Indies. When he was ten or twelve years of 
age, his master started on a voyage to New Orleans, taking his 

551 



552 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

family and the negro boy Jolly along. One day, shortly after 
they had left the island, a big ship sailed close to them and began 
to fire big guns, The women and children began to cry and 
scream and cling to the men. He heard his master say that they 
were pirates. He had no idea what that meant, but he realized 
that they were all in danger of being murdered. The ships drew 
closer together, and the people in both vessels began to fire guns 
and pistols. After a Few moments the pirate ship ran alongside, 
and hundreds of ferocious-looking men, with swords and pistols 
in their hands, sprang on board, uttering savage yells and 
curses. 

" Jolly saw his master fall fighting on the deck, and he ran be- 
low to tell his mistress. There were several women and many 
children in the cabin. It is hard for one to believe that anything 
in the shape of a human being could have been guilty of such 
cruelties as these monsters perpetrated upon their defenseless vic- 
tims. The negro said that he could not bear to witness the ago- 
nies of the women and children, and he returned to the com- 
panionway, where he met several of the pirates. One struck at 
him with a cutlass, but another interposed, remarking: 

** ' Don't kill him. He is worth a pocketful of gold.' They 
threw him up on the deck and wont on into the cabin of the ship. 
The negro boy saw many dead men lying in their blood on the 
decks, and he noticed the captain and several of the sailors stand- 
ing in a group, guarded by pirates. The women and children 
and two or three men who had been found in the cabin were 
dragged on deck and driven aboard of the pirate ship. The cap- 
tain and half a dozen of the crew who had escaped the massa- 
cre were put in chains. The women and children were driven be- 
low. The pirates at once began to loot tlie doomed vessel, and 
several hours were spent in transporting the booty to the decks 
of the pirate ship. Late in the evening the ship was set on fire, 
and the pirates sailed away. 

*' Little attention was paid to the negro boy, and he was per- 
mitted to wander about as he pleased. The pirates spent the 
night in singing and drinking. The next morning the pirate 



TRAGEDY OF THE OCEAN. 553 

captain, followed by several officers, stumbled on deck, and the 
negro boy witnessed a scene that haunted him to his grave. 

" The prisoners were all driven on the forward deck of the ship, 
preparatory to walking the plank. The captain was the first 
one ordered to walk out. He folded his arms across his bosom 
and moved to his death with a firm step and with his head erect. 
The women and children now realized that they were to be 
drowned in the sea, and they began to pray and moan piteously. 
One poor woman, pressing a child to her bosom, walked up to 
one of the pirate officers and implored him to spare her life, offer- 
ing him her jewels and promising him a large sum of money. 
Th« monster tore a gold chain from her neck and began to curse 
her. The child was crying, and the merciless demon wrenched 
it from her arms and hurled it into the sea. The poor mother 
at once ran to the side of the ship and sprang overboard-. Jolly's 
curiosity prompted him to follow her to the ship's side, where he 
saw her rise upon a wave and grasp her infant in her arms. He 
felt some satisfaction in knowing that the poor mother sank to 
rise no more with her little baby clasped to her breast. 

*' The poor women had to be forced and dragged on the plank. 
They clung to the knees of the pirates and begged and implored 
for their lives in a way that would have wrung mercy from any- 
thing but a heart of iron. Many of the children were thrown 
into the sea, where they were snapped up and crushed in the jaws 
of a swarm of sharks that had gathered around the ship." 

My goodness! This recital of horror rushes my mind, vision 
and whole being back more than half a century, and I plainly see 
the heavily armed and well-manned pirate schooner of the Ba- 
hamas firing on our " Thaddeus," and I see the little crew of the 
^' Thaddeus," with firm-set muscles and compressed lips, impa- 
tiently waiting for the unequal combat for life. I see Bible John, 
with his old musket and glittering sheath knife in his belt, offer- 
ing up a silent prayer to Heaven. And I see gloomy Jo, stand- 
ing over the cast-iron signal gun, as silent and motionless as the 
3tatue of Grief. I see the angel form and features of the mys- 



554 A LIFE'S VOYAGE. 

terious girl, with coral garlands and wreaths strewn around her 
watery tomb. Now I see the small crew of the little " Meta- 
mora " stake their lives in an unequal contest. I hear the dis- 
charge of the slave merchant's muskets, and hear poor sailor 
Bill Nelson shriek and drop upon the slaveship's deck, cold in 
death. I hear the groans of one-legged Bill Brown, and see the 
two emaciated slave girls, locked in each other's black arms, sink 
beneath the ocean's waves. I feel my small store of remaining 
strength giving way as I scratch out the sand and gravel with a 
sea shell to give my two young companions shallow graves on the 
surf-washed beach of the uninhabited island. 

I again see Neptune at the helm, and hear Nereid's consoling 
voice, as she stands at the bow of my little jollyboat, on the tem- 
pestuous ocean, and I again look with wonder on the grand 
celestial halls of justice within the unfathomed ocean, that I 
visited in my delirium. I hear my doom to death pronounced 
by the Spanish officers of Cuba's Isle, to take place before to- 
morrow's setting sun. 

No wonder that when the Davenport " Democrat's " reporter 
called on Sailor I, in 1892, that he published in his journal as fol- 
lows: . 

" FIFTY YEARS. 



''A. C. Fulton Goes Over a Fezv Reminiscences of Davenport. 

" A. C. Fulton was found in a reminiscent mood yesterday. 
Fifty years and five days before he had landed here from a 
steamer July 4. 1842. ' I came from New Orleans,' said he, 
' where I passed many of my days of boyhood and manhood. 
During a portion of both I traded with Cuba, Mexico, Jamaica, 
and Sicily; made eleven voyages across the Gulf of Mexico, and 
since those earlier days I have seen the mainland at the mouth of 
the Mississippi River extend seaward over four miles. The river 
has projected that far into the gulf by deposits of silt since I first 
knew it. I entered the river in 183 1, 



TRAGEDY OF THE OCEAN 55^ 

" '* I landed here in Davenport from the upper-river steamer 
" Agnes," Captain Wood in command. He told me that he had 
received from me, for that trip, the largest tonnage of freight and 
the largest freight payment he nad ever taken from any one ship- 
per during his steamboat life.' 

" Mr. Fulton said it would be a hard matter to picture the great 
changes in Iowa and throughout the Union during the half cen- 
tury he had just closed here. He also added that if he could 
have his life prolonged at his bidding to cover the same period 
again, with its same hardships, perils, pains, privations, and joys, 
he would not accept the extension. That saying covers a great 
subject for contemplation." 

My eyes have failed and I am compelled to store away many 
years of my unrecorded diary. Time is my conqueror. 

Ambrose Cowperthwaite Fulton. 



THE END. 



